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ESSAYS ON 
ENGLISH STUDIES 



BY 



HENRY N. HUDSON, LL.D. 



Edited, with Preface. Introduction, and Notes 



A. J. GEORGE, Litt.D. (Amherst) 

Department of English, Newton High School 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK ■ CHICAGO • LONDON 



T £i'7 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 26 1906 

n Copyright Entry 

-w. y, "ft** 

CUSS A XX6. f No, 

JS & t J/ , 

7 COPY B. 



Copyright, 1906 
By GINN & COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



66. Q 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



TO 
ROBERT HUDSON GEORGE 



Yet it is just 
That here in memory of all books which lay 
Their sure foundations in the heart of man 

That I should here assert their rights, attest 
Their honors, and should, once for all, pronounce 
Their benediction ; speak of them as Powers 
Forever to be hallowed ; only less, 
For what we are and what we may become, 
Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, 
Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. 

Wordsworth 

If by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, 
national character is fixed, a people speaks, the past and the 
future are brought into communication with each other, — if 
such men are, in a word, the spokesmen and prophets of the 
human family, — it will not answer to make light of Literature 
or to neglect its study ; rather we may be sure that, in propor- 
tion as we master it, and imbibe its spirit, we shall ourselves 
become in our own measure ministers of like benefits to others. 

John Henry Cardinal Newman 



PREFACE 

In 1 85 1 there was published in Boston an edition of 
Shakespeare's plays in eleven volumes, edited by Henry N. 
Hudson. This edition — the second by an American, Ver- 
planck's being the first — at once attracted the attention 
of students of literature in Europe and America because of 
the independence, originality, and suggestiveness revealed 
in the analysis of the characters, and the insight, sympathy, 
and sanity of the aesthetic criticism. As a result the editor 
soon became recognized as one whose opinions challenged 
attention as did those of Gervinus of Heidelberg and 
Dowden of Dublin. Professor Hudson's object, everywhere 
manifest, even in his earlier work, was to quicken in the 
minds and hearts of readers a love for Shakespeare, as a 
man and artist, by bringing them into vital relations with 
his manifold revelations of human life. 

Few of those who have found pleasure in teaching the 
English classics are aware of what a debt they owe to 
Professor Hudson, who did pioneer work in making the 
study of English literature popular in private classes, sec- 
ondary schools, and colleges. He was able to do this by 
virtue of his unbounded enthusiasm in his work, his belief 
that literature properly taught would awaken a living inter- 
est in all that belongs to humanity, and his wealth of expe- 
rience in life. His ambition to do this for English literature 
was not free from disturbing fears that the methods which 
were so much in vogue in teaching the Greek and Latin 



viii PREFACE 

classics would be thought available here, and as a protest 
against such methods he wrote the following essays, which 
were published in the editions of his School Shakespeare. 

In the revision of Hudson's edition of Shakespeare's plays 
now being published, it was desirable to retain those features 
of the work which gave it distinction and placed the editor 
among the great interpreters of dramatic literature, and to 
gather the essays on the teaching of Shakespeare and the 
English classics in a separate volume for the use of teachers 
as an introduction to Professor Hudson's life, his methods 
of teaching, and his principles of literary criticism. These 
essays contain earnest matter for the teacher of English, 
and if they are read as they were intended to be read they 
will reveal what is so much needed at the present time, — a 
deep feeling for literature, its natural magic and moral pro- 
fundity, rather than a critical knowledge of it. 

The Introduction gives such biographical facts as had a 
special influence on the development of Hudson's character 
and the forming of his tastes ; and the Notes show how his 
work is related to that of other great teachers, and reflect 
the esteem in which it was held by his coworkers in the 
sphere of Shakespearean interpretation and criticism. It is 
believed these will be found helpful to those teachers who 
would teach literature in a vital way. 

It was my good fortune to come upon these essays at a 
time, during my first year of teaching, when I was cast- 
ing about for editions of the English classics which were 
edited with an idea of revealing the forces in the life of the 
times which gave them their tone and color, and the per- 
sonality behind them which gave them their charm and 
vogue, rather than those affording opportunity for learned 
disquisitions on the structure of language and the science of 



PREFACE ix 

verse — the kind of criticism adapted to make our pleasure 
less. I found in them a living power, a warm human sym- 
pathy, a clear moral purpose, and a noble conception of 
what constitutes literary workmanship — the unmistakable 
signs of one who possessed the eye to see, the heart to feel, 
and the imagination to make real the things in literary art 
which are more excellent. After reading them I sought the 
man who created them, and the resulting intimate associ- 
ation which I had with him during the remaining years of 
his life was rich in revelation of 

a Soul whose master bias leans 
To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes. 

He was a genial spirit, full of delicate and subtle purposes, 
of sweet and chivalrous activities, of healthful and charming 
enthusiasms, of a high faith in the beauty and truth of noble 
literary creations, and yet 

endued as with a sense 
And faculty for storm and turbulence, 

which manifested itself in a fierce denunciation of pedantry 
and a withering scorn of drudgery — those foes to the study 
of mere literature — which, when once admitted to the class 
room, will expel interest, admiration, and fellowship. 

For these reasons it has been a pleasure to prepare this 
volume, and to introduce my friend and teacher to others 
who can never feel the charm of his presence as I have 
felt it. 

Owing to the nature of these essays and the conditions 
under which they were written, it was but natural that there 
should be some repetition of thought and form, but it has 
seemed best to republish them as they originally appeared. 



x PREFACE 

The address on Daniel Webster is included in this vol- 
ume as being worthy of study beside those later tributes 
of Honorable S. W. McCall and Honorable George F. Hoar, 
given at the Webster Centennial at Dartmouth College. 

My thanks are due to Dr. Horace Howard Furness for 
permission to quote from his correspondence with Dr. 
Hudson, and to Professor Edward Dowden, of Trinity 
College, Dublin, for his interesting present-day estimate of 
Dr. Hudson's work, which appears in the Notes. 

The presence of a cross ( + ) in the text indicates that there 

is a note on the passage. 

r & A. J. GEORGE 

Brookline, Massachusetts 
August, 1906 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Introduction xiii 

Preface to School Hamlet. (1879) 3 

English in Schools. (1879) 1 9 

Shakespeare as a Text-Book. (1870) 53 

How to Use Shakespeare in School. (1872) . . 63 
Preface to the Harvard Edition of Shakespeare. 

(1880) 87 

Daniel Webster. A Discourse Delivered on the Hun- 
> \ ir dredth Anniversary of the Death of Daniel Webster, 

» wfK; - — 1 

January 18, 1882 119 

Appendix 163 

Notes 177 

Books Quoted in Notes 205 



INTRODUCTION 

Henry Norman Hudson was born in Cornwall, Vermont, 
January 28, 181 4. His early years were spent on the farm, 
where he was brought up to know the necessity and the 
value of application. The only advantages which he had 
for an education were such as were common in a New 
England town with its system of district schools. But these 
advantages should not be underrated, for though the soil 
was not rich in arts and letters, yet by the discipline of 
simplicity in habit, truth in speech, and knowledge rightly 
honored by being associated with power to do some- 
thing worthy, the youth was being unconsciously nurtured 
into possibilities of future usefulness. Much of his power 
to appreciate and interpret Wordsworth was gained in 
these rural associations, breathing the keen and wholesome 
air of poverty. 

When eighteen years of age young Hudson left the farm 
and became apprenticed to a coach maker. During the three 
years spent in learning his trade he was working extra hours 
to earn additional wages with which to buy books. How mature 
his mind had become under the simple and natural training 
of the time — and especially of the district school where he 
came upon bits of the great poets and prose writers in the 
old reading book — is seen from the fact that the first books 
which he bought were Shakespeare, Milton, Plutarch's Lives, 
and Butler's Analogy. It was fortunate for him, as he 
often remarked to me, that at this time he lived in the 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

family of his master in the trade, a man full of sympa- 
thy, of shrewd observation, and sound sense. The master 
soon saw that his apprentice was spending his time in read- 
ing to some purpose, for he talked intelligently and grace- 
fully upon the subjects in life and letters which interested 
him ; he therefore suggested to him the possibility of pre- 
paring for college. The suggestion somewhat surprised the 
lad, but it pleased him no less, and he at once set about 
the task of getting ready for the examinations. This he had 
to do for himself, working late and early at his tasks, for 
he could get no aid save occasional advice from the local 
clergyman; and yet in 1836 he entered Middlebury Col- 
lege, where his older brother was then a student, deter- 
mined that he would work his way to the end. 

It was during this period that the main elements of his 
character as revealed later in life received their proper 
bent. He had little time for the usual college festivities, as 
he was older than the average student and had learned the 
value of time. He was somewhat shy and reserved ; he 
lived much by himself, with nature and with books. The 
libraries attracted him more than the playground. He was 
studious in much the same way that Emerson was, — a way 
that did not show immediate returns, and so failed of reward 
based upon the usual college tests ; consequently he was 
left unnoticed and in obscurity by the college faculty and 
most of the students. His tastes were literary and forensic. 
He was skilled in the art of reading and talking, and when- 
ever he found students of kindred mind he was free and 
friendly in conversation, and courageous in presenting his 
convictions. When speaking of or writing on his favorite 
authors he was animated and zealous, full of poetic fervor 
and originality. His essays, especially those on Shakespeare, 



INTRODUCTION xv 

were no mere reproductions of facts or the thoughts of 
others, but were characterized by clear insight, keen 
analysis, sound judgment, and fervid feeling, enlivened by 
a quiet and quaint humor. They were free from the spirit 
of judicial criticism, for he insisted that loving sympathy 
was the secret of insight. It was this sympathy, this power 
of making the author's ideas and feelings his own, that won 
for him the fit audience in that rural college. Reverend 
H. L. Sheldon, a college mate of his, writes : "At one time 
when Hudson seemed even more than usually earnest and 
happy in his comments, I remarked to him : ' Hudson, you 
will some day write a book on Shakespeare ; I will give 
you a title, — The Beauties of the World's Greatest Poet.' 
He replied, ' Oh, no ; I read and study this author only 
because of the genuine pleasure it affords me and the kind 
of rest it gives me from the fatigue and routine of my col- 
lege application.' " Here was the substance of his great 
work as an aesthetic critic, and the fundamental principle 
in all his teaching of the English classics. From this early 
recognition of the purpose and the power of great litera- 
ture he became a bitter enemy of pedantry on the one hand, 
and of drudgery on the other, which have been so often 
associated with literary studies, and have done so much to 
prevent their proper recognition in academic education. 

On graduating from college in 1840 he went to Ken- 
tucky, where he began teaching. The next two years he 
taught in Huntsville, Alabama. He continued his Shake- 
speare studies meanwhile, and gathered material for a series 
of lectures which he gave to large and enthusiastic audi- 
ences in the principal southern cities. These lectures 
revealed such a wealth of ideas, originality of interpreta- 
tion, ripeness of thought, vigor and mastery of language that 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

their fame traveled northward, and in 1844 he came to 
Boston and began that work which made him a marked 
literary figure there for nearly half a century. Through his 
lectures on Shakespeare he became a center of peculiar 
interest in Boston. He was received with enthusiasm by 
men as wide apart as Richard H. Dana and Theodore 
Parker. Mr. Emerson, who was then lecturing upon liter- 
ary and philosophical subjects up and down the land, was 
charmed with the personality of the new critic. Mr. George 
Ticknor was enthusiastic in his admiration for the spirit 
of the young and chivalrous expounder of the great poet. 
Hudson soon became as popular as Emerson himself in 
lecture courses in all the great cities. Mr. Horace Howard 
Furness writes me, " I vividly remember the enthusiasm which 
attended his early course of lectures in Philadelphia and the 
unexampled crowds which attended them." In 1848 he 
published his lectures with a preface and dedication to Mr. 
Richard H. Dana. These studies of types of human nature 
as illustrated in Shakespeare's various characters had a glow 
and warmth, a freshness of imaginative conception, and a 
clearness of critical insight superior to that attained by any 
American writer, and placed their author in the front rank 
of interpreters. So popular were they that a second edition 
was called for in less than a year. Dr. Bartol, in reviewing 
them for the North American Review, said : " Never was a 
heartier, more absorbing admiration shown than Mr. Hud- 
son's for his subject. After long-continued meditation and 
much rewriting these lectures are now presented to us 
like * beaten oil,' pure and rich." 

It was but natural that such studies of Shakespeare 
should lead to a desire to prepare an edition of his 
works for the purpose of initiating the general reader into 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

a Aiidy of the dramatist with a new and more human- 
i/tic spirit. In 1851 he brought out an edition of Shake- 
speare's plays in eleven volumes. This is sometimes called 
the first American edition because of the enthusiasm it 
created among readers. Although Mr. G. C. Verplanck had 
brought out an edition in 1847, it soon became rare because 
of the destruction of the plates by fire, and Mr. Hudson's 
edition had the control of the market until Mr. Richard 
Grant White became his rival. This work owed its repu- 
tation and success mainly to the character of the critical 
introductions to the plays in which were found the same 
unique and admirable interpretations of the characters 
which had been the feature of his lectures. It was at once 
evident that Hudson was a pupil of Coleridge, whose 
criticism was a criticism of love. Coleridge combined the 
impulse of admiration with the ability to explain why he 
admired; he criticised poetry as poetry, not as science. 

In 1852 Hudson married Miss Emily S. Bright, a gifted 
and cultured lady, whose love was in her home and the 
things which make home lovely. She became his wisest and 
most sympathetic critic. In 1859 he was admitted to the 
diaconate of the Episcopal Church. He was for several 
years editor of the Churchman and originated the Church 
Monthly. In 1862, while in his parochial charge in Litch- 
field, Connecticut, he became chaplain of the New York 
Volunteer Engineers and war correspondent of the New 
York Evening Post. Being stationed in the department 
commanded by General B. F. Butler, he wrote a private 
letter to Mr. Godwin in regard to the general's defeat near 
Bermuda Hundred. This was used as a part of an editorial 
in the Evening Post. Soon after this Chaplain Hudson got 
leave of absence to visit his son who was lying at the point 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

of death. After the death of the son Mrs. Hudson w.s so 
broken down with grief that the chaplain sent his resignati>n 
to his colonel. It was accepted and forwarded to Gener;l 
Butler, who saw his chance to get even with Hudson, and 
he ordered him to appear at headquarters on the charge of 
being absent without leave. He was then put into the 
prison, or " bull pen," as it was called, where he suffered all 
kinds of indignities and hardships during a period of several 
months, until his friends at Washington became informed 
of the condition of things, when he w r as released by wish of 
President Lincoln, and immediately General Grant gave him 
leave of absence. Later Mr. Hudson took occasion to review 
the case, and in a pamphlet of sixty pages arraigned the 
motive and method of General Butler in the most scathing and 
brilliant repartee since Burke's " Letter to a Noble Lord." 
At the time General Butler was seeking the governorship 
of Massachusetts Mr. Hudson reprinted the pamphlet as a 
political document. On this occasion Dr. Oliver Wendell 
Holmes wrote to him : " Your pamphlet is timely; it seems 
to me that the impending election is to mark the choice of 
Massachusetts between civilization and semibarbarism. I 
am very glad you have retold your story at a time when it 
will serve as a strong count in his indictment." 

In 1865 Mr. Hudson moved to Cambridge, where he 
spent the remainder of his life. He occasionally officiated 
in churches, but his time was given almost entirely to teach- 
ing Shakespeare and other English authors and to lectur- 
ing. When Grant White's last edition of Shakespeare came 
out Mr. Hudson confessed that it had beaten his, but at the 
time he said, "Wait awhile, and I will beat White as much 
as he has now beaten me." His teaching in the school and 
college led him to urge that Shakespeare be made of more use 



INTRODUCTION xix 

in English courses, and he began to prepare the plays for 
such use. The feature of these plays was those remarkable 
introductions dealing with the characters in their relation to 
human life and to Shakespeare's mind and art. 

In 1872 he published his magnum opus, Shakespeare's Life, 
Art, and Characters, in two volumes, which is the greatest 
work in the sphere of aesthetic criticism yet produced in 
this country, and is the equal of the best by English and 
German scholars. The concluding act of his literary life 
was the Harvard Shakespeare, in twenty volumes, published 
in 1880. This edition, new in the treatment of text, in the 
introductory matter and notes, at once took its place among 
the best and most reliable of those intended for the general 
reader. 

After the completion of the Harvard edition he con- 
tinued teaching regularly at St. Paul's School, Concord, New 
Hampshire, at St. Mark's, Southboro, and in the Boston 
University School of Oratory, where he was a great favor- 
ite, owing to his kindling intellectual power, quaint humor, 
and genial manner. One of the masters at St. Paul's writes 
of him : " The ideal of a well-balanced man was so consist- 
ently applied by Dr. Hudson, whether to an author's work 
or to a boy's education, that he saw indeed how excellent 
nature's provisions are and how good man's will may make 
his destiny. These aims and standards come back again and 
again to us with real force as we recall his noble, manly, 
and eloquent words. He was poet, critic, philosopher, and 
preacher all in one, 

non sorditus auctor 
Naturae verique ; 

and his wisdom was enforoed by the loving example of his 
own genuine goodness." 



xx INTRODUCTION 

Next to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Burke, and Webster 
were the authors he most delighted to expound. His Studies 
in Wordsworth was a work in every way worthy of him 
and the poet whom he loved. His admiration for Webster 
was unbounded, and the quality of all he had written and 
spoken on him was so true and noble that his distin- 
guished classmate, the Honorable E. J. Phelps, president 
of the Webster Historical Society, asked him to prepare a 
life of the great statesman. In February, 1882, Mr. Phelps 
wrote : " Do not forget that I have appointed you to write 
that grand life, and shall help you to all constitutional and 
legal material I know of." 

He had thought long and deeply about Webster, his life 
and times, and had gathered the material which, he was to 
incorporate into the biography ; he was waiting only until 
the whole subject should be luminous to his thought when 
the disease appeared which caused his death. He had not 
even put pen to paper on this work. His death was sudden 
and unexpected, as he had been in his usual health and 
vigor until his last public appearance in a lecture on Cym- 
beline at Wellesley College. He was much fatigued by the 
effort; soon glandular swelling appeared in the neck, 
which gave his physicians some fear that an operation 
would be necessary. During the week following I saw him 
daily, and the only apparent change was declining strength ; 
that whereas he had been willing to talk (as I was more 
than willing to listen) now he would say : " You must do 
the talking. I must listen. Tell me of your work." He was 
as much interested as ever in any question concerning edu- 
cation, — especially the teaching of English, — so that while 
I had some anxiety as to his condition, I did not think that 
he was seriously ill. When I left him on the evening before 



INTRODUCTION xxi 

the operation there was nothing in his manner to indicate 
that he was apprehensive of the result. The following letter 
written to his publisher only a few days before his death 
reveals the nature of the man, and shows how careful he 
was not to alarm his friends : "I am no better nor, so far 
as I can judge, am I any worse than when you called. The 
principal change is a constant failure of strength. To-morrow 
(Saturday) at twelve o'clock they will perform a very serious 
operation on me. What the result may be is, of course, all 
in the dark. If my hour has come, so be it. Give my cordial 
regards to all the dear girls and boys in the house, and ask 
them to give me their good wishes and prayers in this hour 
of trial. God help me ! and God help us all ! " The shock 
of the operation was too great for his weakened system, and 
he died on January 16, 1886. 

Mr. Hudson was a man of marked peculiarities, physical 
and mental. He has often been compared to Carlyle in the 
contour of his head and face. The following comparison 
was written by Reverend Julius Ward in 1880: "He has 
the same perceptive assaulting brow, the same eager restless 
eyes, the same personality in speech, the same impetuous 
utterance, the same intensity of feeling upon great ques- 
tions, the same glowing passion when aroused, the same spir- 
itual insight as has Carlyle. He was Carlyle on the lecture 
platform as truly as Carlyle in conversation. His recent 
lectures in Hawthorne Hall were rare displays of totally 
unique powers of public speaking, of a way of saying unfor- 
gettable things in an unforgettable style, of throwing great 
force into single sentences, of speaking the truth so that no 
one can gainsay it. Whenever he has spoken, by word or 
pen, he has unconsciously spoken or written with the same 
impetuosity, the same audacity, the same insight which 



xxil INTRODUCTION 

mark the utterances of the venerable Chelsea sage." He 
was a man of might when paying a tribute to noble men 
and worthy causes, of large and liberal spirit ; his mental 
and moral fiber was stanch and true, and hence he was a 
delightful friend and implacable enemy. He was brilliant 
in conversation, quick in repartee, pungent in satire, of 
delicate irony, of shy and gentle humor, merry within the 
limits of becoming mirth. He was at his best in the privacy 
of his library when a few friends were present : then the 
soft blue eyes would kindle with appreciation, or flash with 
indignation, the features would light up, the lips quiver, 
and his utterance would assume forms lucid, graceful, witty, 
pathetic, and imaginative by turns. He became ' the old 
man eloquent/ stimulating in wit, wholesome in knowledge, 
full of the genial sap of humanity. No one who enjoyed 
these familiar expositions, of mellow eloquence, of large and 
noble discourse full of the sweets of poetry and the wisdom 
of philosophy, will ever forget them or the charming per- 
sonality from whom they emanated. 

Of the many tributes of friends, that of Honorable E. J. 
Phelps, written from the legation of the United States, 
London, January 30, 1886, is perhaps the most fitting: 
" Student, Scholar, Gentleman, Christian, happy in his family, 
his friendships, his distinguished reputation, his well-earned 
success : not many reach the limit of three-score and ten 
with so much to be thankful for, so little to deplore." 



ESSAYS ON 

ENGLISH STUDIES 

PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 

ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 

SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 

HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 

PREFACE TO THE HARVARD EDITION OF 
SHAKESPEARE 

DANIEL WEBSTER 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 

Since the first volume of my School Shakespeare made its 
appearance, which was about nine years ago, very consider- 
able advances have been made in the way of furniture and 
preparation needful or desirable for such a work. This is 
especially the case with the play here presented in a new 5 
dress. And my own long and constant occupation in teach- 
ing classes in Shakespeare has, I would fain hope, now 
brought me a somewhat larger and riper fitness for doing 
what is requisite in this particular field. Moreover, the 
stereotype plates of this play, as also of some others, have 10 
been so much and so often used for the pamphlet sections 
of the volume, that they have become not a little worn and 
defaced. These are the principal reasons for setting forth 
the present edition. 

I still adhere to my old plan of footnotes, + instead of 15 
massing the annotation all together at the end of the play. 
This is because ample experience has assured me, beyond 
all perad venture, that whatever of explanation young stu- 
dents need of Shakespeare's text — and they certainly need 
a good deal — is much better every way when placed directly 20 
under the eye, so that they can hardly miss it ; and because 
at least nineteen in twenty of such pupils will pass over an 
obscure word or phrase without understanding it, rather 
than stay to look, up the explanation in another part of the 
volume. In this instance, however, I have meant to exclude 25 
from the footnotes all matter but what appeared fairly needful 

3 



4 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

or useful for a proper understanding of the Poet's language 
and meaning. As will readily be seen from some of the 
footnotes, I am indebted to Mr. Joseph Crosby, of Zanes- 
ville, Ohio, for most valuable aid towards this part of my 
5 task. The matter so used has been communicated to me 
in a private correspondence with that gentleman, running 
through several years, and extending over the whole field of 
Shakespeare, and throwing more light on dark and difficult 
passages than I have received from any other living com- 

10 mentator on the Poet. 

Another advantage of the method of footnotes is, that 
it operates as a wholesome restraint against overdoing the 
work of annotation. And surely, if we may judge from 
what has been done, it is so much easier to multiply super- 

15 fluous notes than to keep within the bounds of what is fairly 
needful in this kind, that some such restraint seems eminently 
desirable. Shakespeare, it scarce need be said, has suffered 
a great deal from this sort of exegetical incontinence. And 
perhaps the tendency is stronger now than ever before to 

20 smother his workmanship beneath a mass of needless and 
even obstructive annotation. 4 " An inordinate fecundity of 
explanation is quite too much the order of the day. There 
have been divers instances, of late, where we find the gloss, 
I cannot say outweighing, but certainly far outbulking, the 

25 text. Surely it is better to leave students a little unhelped 
than thus to encumber them with superfluous help. These 
burdens of unnecessary comment are really a " weariness of 
the flesh " \ and even hungry minds may well be repelled from 
a feast so overlaid with quenchers of the appetite. Nor have 

30 the Poet's editors yet got their minds untied from the old 
vice of leaving many of his darkest things unexplained, and 
of explaining a multitude of things that were better left to 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 5 

take care of themselves. For pupils ought not to be put to 
studying Shakespeare at all, until they have grown to such a 
measure of intelligence, that they may be safely presumed 
to know several things without being told. 

Such being the case, or at least my view of the case, I am 5 
not without apprehension, that some excess may be justly 
charged upon what is here done. Self-restrained and spar- 
ing as I have meant to be, still there is a considerable addi- 
tion to the number of notes given in my former edition. 
But, in the matter of annotation, it is not easy to strike just 10 
the right medium between too much and too little. Here, 
again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own 
experience in teaching; aiming to give such and so many 
notes as I have found needful or conducive to a fair under- 
standing of the Poet's thought. 15 

In the present stage of Shakespearean study, I suppose it 
would hardly do, even in a book designed for school use, to 
leave the matter of textual comment and textual correction 
altogether untouched. Accordingly there will be found, at 
the end of the play, a body of Critical Notes, + wherein I 20 
have drawn together whatever seemed necessary or desirable 
co be said in the way of textual criticism, and of comment on 
such particulars of textual correction as are here admitted. 
In doing this, I have almost unavoidably been led to note a 
few instances of different readings. 25 

These few cases excepted, I have purposely, and with full 
deliberation, abstained from everything in the line of vari- 
orum comment and citation. For, indeed, such matter, 
however right and good in its place, can hardly be of any use 
or interest save to those who are making or intending to 30 
make a specialty of Shakespearean lore. But, of the pupils 
and even the teachers in our schools and colleges, probably 



6 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

not one in five hundred has, or ought to have, any thought 
of becoming a specialist in Shakespeare, or a linguistic anti- 
quary in any department of study. To such students, a 
minute discussion or presentation of various readings must 
5 needs be a stark impertinence; and its effect, if it have 
any, can hardly be other than to confuse and perplex their 
thoughts. In this, as in other walks of human service, the 
processes of elaborate study are of very limited use, and may 
well be confined to a few ; while the last results of such 

10 study are or may be highly useful to all. I hold, indeed, 
that Shakespeare ought to be made much more of than he is 
in our higher education : + not, however, with the view of fit- 
ting people to be editors and critics ; but that they may 
have their minds and hearts rightly attuned to the delecta- 

15 tions of his poetry and eloquence and wisdom; and that 
they may carry from the study some fair preparation of 
liberal thought and culture and taste into the common pur- 
suits and interests of life. The world is getting prodigiously 
overstocked with authors ; + so many are aspiring to gain a 

20 living by their wits, that the thing is becoming a dreadful 
nuisance : and it really seems full time that we should begin 
to take more thought how a condition of " plain living " 
may be sanctified with the grace of "high thinking"; and 
how even the humbler and more drudging forms of labor 

25 may be sweetened by the pure and ennobling felicities of 
unambitious intelligence. 

A question has lately been raised, and is still pending, as 
to the comparative value of verbal and of what is called aes- 
thetic criticism; and some have spoken disparagingly, not 

30 to say contemptuously, of the latter, as a mere irrelevancy, 
which they would fain be rid of altogether. Verbal criti- 
cism certainly has its place, and in its place is not to be 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 7 

dispensed with ; and it has at least this advantage over the 
other, that it is strictly necessary in the study of such authors 
as Shakespeare, who abounds in words and phrases which, 
to common readers, are quite unintelligible without such 
help. This, however, may easily be overdone, and in fact 5 
sometimes has been hugely overdone, insomuch as to be- 
come little better than a sheer encumbrance ; nevertheless, on 
the whole, it has been of incalculable service. But the other, 
I must think, has done good service too, and has fairly justi- 
fied its claims to a high estimate in Shakespearean lore : 10 
albeit I have to confess that some discredit has of late come 
upon it, from the fact that, in divers cases, it has taken to 
very odd and eccentric courses, and has displayed an ill- 
starred propensity to speculate and subtilize the Poet's work- 
manship clean out of its natural propriety. Transcendental 15 
metaphysics, whether applied to science, to philosophy, to 
art, or to whatsoever else, of course loves to " reason high, 
and finds no end, in wandering mazes lost." Whatever it 
takes in hand, it can easily discover any meaning it wants, 
and as easily argue away any meaning not in accordance 20 
with its idealistic predilections ; so using its alchemy as to 
" extract sunbeams from cucumbers," or to resolve gold into 
vapor, just as it happens to list. But these abuses may very 
well be struck off without casting away the thing itself. And 
the aesthetic criticism of Coleridge, Schlegel, Charles Lamb, 25 
Hazlitt, and Mrs. Jameson, has probably done more to diffuse 
and promote the study of Shakespeare, than all the verbal 
criticism in the world put together. 4 " 

The Introduction here given, as also some of the footnotes, 
is mainly occupied with matter in this line; the aim be- 30 
ing, to aid such students as may care to be aided, towards 
what may be termed the interior study of Shakespeare's 



8 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

characters. Ordinarily, in books designed for such use as 
the present, I deem it better to reproduce extracts from 
approved masters in critical discourse than to obtrude any 
judgments of my own. But my views of Hamlet are so 
5 different from those commonly put forth, that in this case I 
judged it best to set them aside, and to occupy the limited 
space at my disposal with a presentation of my own thoughts. 
In this part of the work, I have derived much furtherance 
from Professor Karl Werder's able essay on Hamlet, portions 

10 of which, very choicely translated, are given in Mr. H. H. 
Furness's great and admirable work, the variorum edition of 
the play. My own views were indeed substantially the same 
long before I had any knowledge of the German Professor, 
and even before his essay was written ; but I would not if I 

15 could, and certainly could not if I would, disguise that I am 
indebted to him for much aid, and more encouragement, 
towards a full statement and expression of them. 

The occasion moves me to protest, with all possible ear- 
nestness, against the course now too commonly pursued in 

20 our studying and teaching of English literature. We seem 
indeed to have got stuck fast in the strange notion, that chil- 
dren are never learning anything unless they are conscious 
of it : + and so we are sparing no pains to force in them a 
premature and most unhealthy consciousness of learning. 

25 Nothing is left to the free and spontaneous vitalities of 
Nature. Things have come to such a pass with us, that a 
pupil must live, 

Knowing that he grows wiser every day, 
Or else not live at all, and seeing too 
30 Each little drop of wisdom as it falls 

Into the dimpling cistern of his heart. 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 9 

Hence our education is kept at a restless fever heat of 
ambition and emulation; and this naturally involves an 
incessant urging of high-pressure methods. We have no 
faith in any sowing, save where the seeds " forthwith spring 
up, because they have no deepness of earth." So eager and 5 
impatient are we for immediate results, that the conditions 
and processes of inward growth are, as far as possible, 
worked off and got rid of. But the results attained by this 
straining and forcing are necessarily false and delusive ; and 
presently wither away, because they have no root. 10 

Thus in our hot haste to make the young precociously 
intellectual, we are just burning real health and vigor of 
intelligence out of them; + or, at all events, the best that 
can be gained by such a course is but what Wordsworth 
justly deprecates as " knowledge purchased with the loss 15 
of power." For, in truth, when people, of whatever age, see 
themselves growing from day to day, they are not really 
growing at all, but merely bloating ; — a puffing up, not a 
building up. And we shall assuredly find, in due time, nay, 
we are already finding, that those who get ripe before they 20 
are out of their teens begin to rot before passing their twen- 
ties. For such a forced and premature action of the mind 
can only proceed by overtaxing and exhausting other parts 
of the system ; and must needs be followed by a collapse of 
the mind itself equally premature. In other words, where 25 
the brain is built up at the expense of the stomach, the brain 
itself must soon break down. And, as " the child is father 
of the man," so of course the smart boys of our educational 
hotbeds can only blossom out into grown-up intellectual 
manikins. 30 

Now, in opposition to all this, be it said, again and 
again, that the work of education is necessarilv secret and 



10 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

unconscious just in proportion as it is deep and generative. 
For the mind is naturally conscious only of what touches its 
surface, rustles in its fringes, or roars in its outskirts ; while 
that which works at its vital springs, and feeds its native 
5 vigor, is as silent as the growing of the grass, as unconscious 
as the assimilation of the food and the vitalizing of the 
blood. When its springs of life are touched to their finest 
issues, then it is that we are least sensible of the process. 
So it is rightly said, " the gods approve the depth and not 

io the tumult of the soul." Only the dyspeptic are conscious 
of their gastric operations : the eupeptic never think of 
their stomachs, are not even aware that they have any. 

One would suppose that a little reflection on the workings 
of the infant mind might teach us all this. + For children, 

1 5 during their first five years, before they can tell anything about 
it, or make any show of it in set recitations, and while they 
are utterly unconscious of it, do a vast amount of studying 
and learning; probably storing up more of real intelli- 
gence than from any subsequent ten years of formal school- 

20 ing. And such schooling is no doubt best and wisest when 
it continues and copies, as far as. may be, those instinctive 
methods of Nature. But the pity of it is, that our educa- 
tion, as if " sick of self-love," appears to spurn the old wis- 
dom of Nature, preferring to take its rules and measures 

25 from a proud and arrogant intellectualism. 

In the mental and moral world, as in the physical, the 
best planting is always slow of fruitage : generally speaking, 
the longer the fruit is in coming, the sounder and sweeter 
when it comes ; an interval of several years, perhaps of ten, 

30 or even twenty, being little time enough for its full and per- 
fect advent. For growth is a thing that cannot be extempo- 
rized ; and, if you go about to extemporize it, you will be 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET n 

sure to cheat or be cheated with a worthless surface imita- 
tion : that is to say, in place of a growth, which is slow 
and silent, but full of juice and taste withal, will be substi- 
tuted a swift, loud, vapid manufacture. 

What a teacher, therefore, most especially needs (and 5 
parents need it too) is the faith that knows how to work 
and wait ; — to work diligently, carefully, earnestly ; to wait 
calmly, patiently, hopefully ; + — that faith which, having its 
eye on the far-off future, does not thirst for present rewards, 

Nor with impatience from the season ask 10 

More than its timely produce. 

For Nature, the honest old Mother, is far better, stronger, 
richer, than our busy and meddlesome intellectualists, who 
are straining so hard to get ahead of her, have the heart to 
conceive. Human wisdom may indeed aid and further her 15 
processes ; but it is stark folly to think of superseding them. 
And the forcing system now so much in vogue is essentially 
a leveling system ; though, to be sure, it can only level 
downwards : perhaps, indeed, the circumstance of its look- 
ing to a compelled equality is what makes it so popular; — 20 
a thing sure to issue in a manifold spuriousness ! For its 
estimate of things is, for the most part, literally preposterous. 
Minds of a light and superficial cast it overstimulates into a 
morbid quickness and volubility, wherein a certain liveliness 
and fluency of memory, going by rote, parrot-like, enables 25 
them to win flashy and vainglorious triumphs by a sort of 
cheap and ineffectual phosphorescence ; thus making them, 
as Professor Huxley says, "conceited all the forenoon of 
their life, and stupid all its afternoon": while, upon 
minds of a more robust and solid make, which are growing 30 
too much inwardly to do any shining outwardly, it has a 



12 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

disheartening and depressing effect. Thus the system oper- 
ates to quench the deeper natures, while kindling false fires 
in the shallower. 

Hence, no doubt, the feeling, which can hardly be new to 
5 any thoughtful teacher or parent, that " strongest minds are 
often those of whom the noisy school hears least." + For, 
under the system in question, modest vigor is naturally 
eclipsed by pert and forward imbecility, —the proper charac- 
teristic of minds that have not strength enough to keep still. 

io But minds thus heated into untimely efflorescence can hardly 
ripen into anything but sterility and barrenness : before the 
season of fruitage, the sap is all dried out of them. To 
quote Professor Huxley again: "The vigor and freshness, 
which should have been stored up for the hard struggle for 

15 existence in practical life, have been washed out of them 
by precocious mental debauchery, — by book-gluttony and 
lesson-bibbing : their faculties are worn out by the strain 
upon their callow brains, and they are demoralized by worth- 
less, childish triumphs before the real work of life begins." 

20 Of those who are so incessantly driving on this bad system, 
we may well ask, with Wordsworth, — 

When will their presumption learn, 
That in th' unreasoning progress of the world 
A wiser spirit is at work for us, 
25 A better eye than theirs, most prodigal 

Of blessings, and most studious of our good, 
Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours ? 

Now, Shakespeare, above all other authors, should be 

allowed to teach as Nature teaches, else he ought not to 

30 be used as a text-book at all. And here, I suspect, the 

great danger is, that teachers, having too little faith in the 

spontaneous powers of Nature, will undertake to do too 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 13 

much, will keep thrusting themselves, their specialties and 
artificial preparations, between the pupil and the author. 
With average pupils, if of sufficient age, Shakespeare will 
make his way, slowly and silently indeed, but effectively, pro- 
vided his proper efficacy be not strangled and defeated by 5 
an excess of learned verbalism. For his great superiority 
lies very much in this, that he writes close to facts as they 
are : no cloud of words, nothing, stands between his vision 
and the object. Hence with him, preeminently, language 
is used as a transparent, invisible vehicle of thought and 10 
matter ; so that the mind, if rightly put in communication 
with him, thinks not of his expression at all, but loses sight 
of it, in the force and vividness of what is expressed. Beau- 
tiful his speech is indeed ; but its beauty lies in this very 
thinp-, that it is the crystal shrine, itself unseen, of the speak- 15 
ing'aoul within. The less, therefore, the attention of students 
is d, verted from his matter to his language by external calls, 
the quicker and stronger will be their interest in him ; — an 
interest free, natural, and unconscious indeed, but all the 
better for thai : so that the teacher will best further it by 20 
letting it alone ; will most effectively help it by leaving it 
unhelped. For the learning of words is a noisy process ; + 
whereas the virtue of things steals into the mind with noise- 
less step, and is ever working in us most when we per- 
ceive it least. And so, when Shakespeare is fairly studied 25 
in the manner here proposed, the pupil will naturally be 
drawn to forget himself; all thought of the show he is 
to make will be cheated into healthful sleep; unless, ay, 
unless — 

Some intermeddler still is on the watch 30 

To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray, 
Within the pinfold of his own conceit. 



14 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Not, however, but that something of special heed should 
be given to the Poet's language, and his use of words ; for 
many of these are either unfamiliar or used in unfamiliar 
senses : but this part of the study should be kept strictly 
5 subordinate to the understanding of his thought and mean- 
ing, and should be pushed no further than is fairly needful 
to that end. But I have ample cause for saying, that in many 
cases, if not in most, altogether too much time and strength 
are spent in mere word-mongering and lingual dissection ; a 

10 vice as old indeed as Cicero's time, who pointedly ridicules 
it in describing one as " a chanter of formulas, a bird-catcher 
of syllables." In fact, as we are now chiefly intent on edu- 
cating people into talkers, not workers, so the drift of our 
whole education is, to make language an ultimate object of 

15 study, instead of using it as a medium for converse with 
things : for we all know, or ought to know, that the readiest 
and longest talkers are commonly those who have litt 1 - or 
nothing to say. On every side, teachers are to be found 
attending very disproportionately, not to say exclusively, to 

20 questions of grammar, etymology, rhetoric, and the mere 
technicalities of speech \ thus sticking forever in the husk 
of language, instead of getting through into the kernel of 
matter and thought. 

Now, as before implied, Shakespeare, least of all, ought to 

25 be taught or studied after this fashion. A constant dissecting 
of his words and syllables just chokes off all passage of his 
blood into the pupil's mind. + Our supreme master in the 
knowledge of human nature, it is little less than downright 
sacrilege to be thus using him as the raw material of philo- 

30 logical exercitations. In the degree that it is important 
people should acquire a taste for him and learn to love him, 
just in that degree is it a sin to use him so ; for such use 



maSm 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 15 

can hardly fail to breed a distaste for him and an aversion 
to him. Doubtless there is a time for parsing, as there is 
for other things; but people cannot parse themselves or 
be parsed into a relish for Shakespeare's workmanship, or 
into a fruitful converse with his treasures of wisdom and 5 
power. 

And with the young, especially, the study of vernacular 
authors should be prosecuted in entire subservience to the 
knowledge of things : if turned into a word-mongering pro- 
cess, it touches no free and natural springs of interest, and 10 
so becomes tedious and dull, — just the thing to defeat all 
that pleasure which is the pulse of mental life. For the 
proper business, as also the healthy instinct of young minds 
is, to accumulate and lay in stores of matter : the analytic 
and discriminative processes naturally belong to a later 15 
period ; and to anticipate the proper time of them is a very 
bad mistake. But the knowledge of things proceeds too 
slowly and too silently for the ends of schoolroom show. 
Boys in school and college shine chiefly by the knowledge 
of words, for this is the mere work of memory ; but, in prac- 20 
tical life, men are useful and successful in proportion to their 
knowledge of things : which knowledge proceeds, to be sure, 
by the measures of growth, and therefore is far less avail- 
able for competitive examinations and exhibitory purposes. 
And so, forsooth, our children must be continually drilled in 25 
a sort of microscopic verbalism, as if we had nothing so 
much at heart as to make them learned in words, ignorant 
of things. Hence, too, instead of learning now to do some 
one thing, or some few things, they must learn how to 
smatter of all things : instead, for example, of being taught 30 
to sing, they must be taught to prate scientifically about 
music. 



16 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Thus our educational methods are all converging to the 
one sole purpose of generating a depurated and conceited 
intellectualism ; which is just about the shallowest, barrenest, 
windiest thing in the whole compass of man's intellectual 
5 globe. But, what is strangest of all, so becharmed are we 
with our supposed progress in this matter, as not to see, what 
is nevertheless as plain as the Sun at midday, that we are 
taking just the right course to stunt and thwart the intellect 
itself. For the several parts of the mind must grow in pro- 

10 portion, keeping touch and time together in the unity of a 
common sap and circulation, else growth itself is but decay 
in disguise. And when the intellectual man, through pride 
of self-sufficingness, sequesters itself from its natural com- 
merce and reciprocation with the moral, emotional, and 

15 imaginative man, the intellect must needs go into a dry rot. 

I was convinced long ago, and further experience has but 
strengthened that conviction, that in the study of English 
authors the method of recitations is radically at fault, and 
ought seldom if evef to be used.+ For that method naturally 

20 invites, and indeed almost compels, the pupil to spend all 
his force on those points only which are, or may be made, 
available for immediate recitational effect. But, if the author 
be really worth studying, all, or nearly all, that is best in 
him escapes through the fingers of this process, and is left 

25 behind ; the pupil having no occasion for attending to it, nor 
any strength of attention to spare for it. He does nothing 
but skip lightly over the surface of what is before him, picking 
up such small items as the tongue and memory can handle ; 
but remaining quite innocent of all its deeper efficacies, 

30 which would indeed be rather an encumbrance than a help 
in reference to what he has in view. For the best thing that 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 17 

the best authors can do is to quicken and inspire the stu- 
dent's mind : but quickening and inspiration are nowise 
things to be recited ; their natural effect is to prevent glib- 
ness of memory and tongue : and, while the pupil is intent 
only on what he can recite, the author's quickening and 5 
inspiring power has no chance to work ; and he just runs or 
slides over it without being touched by it, or catching any 
virtue from it. It is just the difference of mere acquirement 
and culture : for what the mind gains in the way of acquire- 
ment merely, is lost almost as quickly as it is got \ but what- 10 
ever of culture is gained abides as an inseparable part of the 
mind itself. Thus the same rule holds here as in so many 
other things, that, when pupils are studying merely or 
mainly for effect, all the best effect of the study is inevi- 
tably missed. 15 

For these reasons, I have never had and never will have 
anything but simple exercises ; + the pupils reading the 
author under the teacher's direction, correction, and ex- 
planation; the teacher not even requiring, though usually 
advising, them to read over the matter in advance. Thus 20 
it is a joint communing of teacher and pupils with the 
author for the time being ; just that, and nothing more. 
Nor, assuredly, can such communion, in so far as it is 
genial and free, be without substantial and lasting good \ 
far better indeed than any possible cramming of mouth 25 
and memory for recitation. The one thing needfuHhere 
is, that the pupils rightly understand and feel -what they 
read : this secured, all the rest will take care of itself ; 
because, w r hen this is gained, the work is, not indeed done, 
but fairly and effectively begun ; and what is once so 30 
begun will be ever after in course of doing, never done. 
For people cannot dwell, intelligently and with open minds, 



18 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

in the presence of " sweetness and light," or within the 
sound of wisdom and eloquence, without being enriched, 
— enriched secretly, it may be, but permanently ; for the 
enrichment is in the shape of germs, which have in them 
5 the virtue of perennial growth. And when I find the pupils 
taking pleasure in what they are about, entering into it 
with the zest and spirit of honest delight, then I know full 
well that they are drinking in the author's soul power, and 
that what they are drinking in is going to the right spot. 

10 For, to find joy and sweetness in the taste of what is pure 
and good, is the strongest pledge that things are going well. 
And such a communing of youthful minds with genius and 
mellow wisdom has something of mystery and almost of 
magic in it. Rather say, it is a holy sacrament of the mind. 

15 As beautiful, too, as it is beneficent : in this naughty-lovely, 
or this lovely-naughty, world of ours, I hardly know of a 
lovelier sight. There is, be assured there is, regeneration 
in it. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 

Why should English Literature be taught in our schools? 
and, What is the best way of teaching it? These are the 
questions which I propose to discuss. 

As preliminary to such discussion, it will, I think, be 
rightly in place to consider, briefly, what our people are 5 
aiming to prepare their children for, and" what sort of an 
education it is the proper business of the school to give ; 
that is to say, what form of mind and character, and what 
disposition of the faculties, it is meant to impress. 

Now I take it that a vast majority of the pupils in our 10 
schools are not to pass their life as students or as authors. 
Their main business in this world is to gain an honest living 
for themselves and for those dependent on them. And no 
plan of education is just that leaves this prime considera- 
tion behind, in quest of any alleged higher aims : for there 15 
really are no higher aims ; and all pretense of such is a 
delusion and a snare. Some men, it is true, do more than 
gain an honest living ; but this is the best thing that any 
man does; as, on the other hand, shining intellectually is 
the poorest thing that any man does, or can possibly learn 20 
to do. Then too most of the pupils in our schools, ninety- 
nine hundredths of them at the least, are to get their living 
by handwork, not by head work ; + and what they need is, 
to have their heads so armed and furnished as to guard 
their handwork against error and loss, and to guide it to 25 
the most productive means and methods. And, for gaining 

19 



20 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

an honest living by handwork, the largest and best part 
of their education is not to be had in school ; it must be 
got somewhere else, or not at all. The right place, the 
only right place, for learning the trade of a farmer or a 
5 mechanic is on the farm or in the shop. For instance, 
Mr. Edward Burnett's " Deerfoot Farm," in Southborough, 
Massachusetts, is, I undertake to say, a better school for 
learning agriculture than any " agricultural college " is likely 
to be. There is no practicable, nay, no possible way of 

10 acquiring the use of tools but by actually handling them, 
and working with them. And this rule holds equally true 
in all the walks of life, — holds as true of the lawyer, the 
physician, the merchant, as of the shoemaker, the brick- 
layer, the machinist, the blacksmith. 

15 On this point, our people generally, at least a very large 
portion of them, have their notions all wrong side up : 
their ideas and expectations in the matter are literally pre- 
posterous. How the thing came to be so, it were bootless 
to inquire ; but so it clearly is. Parents, with us, are mani- 

20 festly supposing that it is the business of the school to 
give their children all the education needful for gaining an 
honest living; that their boys and girls ought to come from 
the school-teachers' hands fully armed and equipped for 
engaging, intelligently and successfully, in all sorts of work, 

25 whether of head or of hand. And they are evermore com- 
plaining and finding fault because this is not done ; that 
their children, after all, have only learned how to use books, 
if indeed they have learned that, and know no more how to 
use tools, are no better fitted to make or procure food and 

30 clothes, than if they had spent so much time in stark idle- 
ness or in sleep. But the fault is in themselves, not in the 
school ; their expectations on this head being altogether 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 21 

unreasonable, and such as the school cannot possibly 
answer. That, say what you please, is the plain English 
of the matter ; and it may as well be spoken. 

I repeat that, with very few exceptions, and those mostly 
applicable to girls, the most and the best that the school 5 
can do, or can reasonably be expected to do, is to educate 
the mind and the heart ; as for the education of their chil- 
dren's hands, parents must, yes, must look for this else- 
where : probably their best way is to take it into their own 
immediate care, and hold themselves religiously bound to 10 
attend to it. Possibly, withal, some parents, as also some 
who drive the trade of idealizing about education, may 
need to be taught, or warned, that unless the school have 
something ready made to its hand, unless the pupil bring 
to it something inside his skull, it cannot educate his mind : 1 5 
brains it cannot furnish \ though it is often blamed for 
not doing this too. And, good as vocal intelligence may 
be, yet, for all practical ends, and even the dignities, of 
life, manual intelligence is vastly better; + this it is that 
makes both the artist and the artisan; and without this 20 
the former, however it may prattle and glitter, can neither 
plow the field nor reap the corn, neither tan the leather 
nor make the shoe, neither shape the brick nor build the 
wall, neither grind the flour nor bake the bread. 

But I suspect our American parents have become some- 25 
what absurdly, and not very innocently, ambitious of having 
their boys and girls all educated to be gentlemen and 
ladies ; + which is, I take it, the same in effect as having 
them educated to be good for nothing ; too proud or too 
lazy to live by handwork, while they are nowise qualified 30 
to live by headwork, nor could get any to do, if they were. 
And so they insist on having their children taught how to 



22 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

do something, perhaps several things, without ever soiling 
their fingers by actually doing anything. If they would, in 
all meekness and simplicity of heart, endeavor to educate 
their children to be good for something, they would be 
5 infinitely more likely to overtake the aim of their sinful 
and stupid ambition. The man who has been well and 
rightly educated to earn, and does earn, a fair living by 
true and solid service, he is a gentleman in the only sense 
in which it is not both a sin and a shame to be called by 

10 that title. Any form of honest service, however plain and 
humble, has manliness in it, and is therefore a higher style 
of gentility, and a sounder basis of self-respect, than any, 
even the proudest, form of mere social ornamentation. 
The dull boy, who cannot prate science, but can drive a 

15 cart as a cart ought to be driven, or the dull girl, who cannot 
finger a piano, but can rightly broil a beefsteak, is, in the 
eye of all true taste, a far more sightly and attractive object 
than the most learned and accomplished good-for-nothing 
in the world. I have seen men calling themselves doctors, 

20 who, week after week, month after month, year after year, 
were going about making sham calls on bogus patients, 
that so they might either get themselves a practice or 
make men believe they had got one \ and have thought 
that the poorest drudge, who honestly ate his bread, or 

25 what little he could get, in the sweat of his face, was a 
prince in comparison with them. An aristocratic idler or 
trifler or spendthrift or clothes frame, however strong he 
may smell of the school and the college, of books and of 
lingual culture, is no better than a vulgar illiterate loafer ; 

30 nor can his smart clothes and his perfumes and his lily 
hands and his fashionable airs shield him from the just 
contempt of thoughtful men and sensible women. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 23 

Now, so long as people proceed upon the notion that their 
children's main business in this world is to shine, and not 
to work, and that the school has it in special charge to fit 
them out at all points for a self-supporting and reputable 
career in life ; just so long they will continue to expect and 5 
demand of the school that which the school cannot give \ 
to grumble and find fault because it fails to do what they 
wish ; and to insist on having its methods changed till their 
preposterous demands are satisfied. On the other hand, 
the school could do its proper work much better, if people 10 
would but come down, or rather come up, to a just concep- 
tion of what that work is. But it must needs fail, in a greater 
or less degree, to do that part of education which falls within 
its legitimate province, while struggling and beating about 
in a vain endeavor to combine this with that part which 15 
fairly lies outside of its province. For, in straining to hit 
the impossible, we are pretty sure to miss the possible. And 
all experienced teachers know right well that those parents 
who faithfully do their own part in the education of their 
children are most apt to be satisfied with what the school 20 
is doing. 

It is, then, desirable that children should learn to think, 
but it is indispensable that they should learn to work ; and 
I believe it is possible for a large, perhaps the larger, portion 
of them to be so educated as to find pleasure in both. But 25 
the great question is, how to render the desirable thing 
and the indispensable thing mutually helpful and supple- 
mentary. For, surely, the two parts of education, the edu- 
cation of the mind and the education of the hand, though 
quite distinct in idea, and separate in act, are not, or need 30 
not be, at all antagonistic.* On the contrary, the school 
can, and should, so do its part as to cooperate with and 



24 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

further that part which lies beyond its province. And it is 
both the office and the aim of a wise benevolence in teachers 
so to deal with the boys under their care as to make them, 
if possible, intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded men, with 

5 hearts set and tuned to such services and such pleasures as 
reason and religion approve ; also, to make them prudent, 
upright, patriotic citizens, with heads so stocked and tem- 
pered as not to be " cajoled and driven about in herds " by 
greedy, ambitious, unprincipled demagogues, and the polit- 

10 ical gamesters of the day. And here it is to be noted, withal, 
that any man who gains an honest living for himself, whether 
lettered or unlettered, is a good citizen in the right sense of 
the term ; and that human slugs and do-nothings, however 
book-learned they may be, are not good citizens. 

15 As for the women, let it suffice that their rights and inter- 
ests in this matter are coordinate with those of the men ; 
just that, and no more. Their main business, also, is to get 
an honest living. And the education that unprepares them 
or leaves them unprepared for this is the height of folly and 

20 of wrong. And I hope the most of them are not going to 
turn students or authors by profession, nor to aim at eating 
their bread in the sweat of the brain. For things have 
already come to that pass with us, that any fool can write a 
book : the great difficulty is in finding people who know 

25 enough and have strength enough not to attempt it. 

And here let me say that the greatest institution in the 
world is the family ; + worth all the others put together, and 
the foundation of them all. So, again, the greatest art known 
among men is housekeeping, which is the life of the family. 

30 For what are we poor mortals good for, in head, heart, hand, 
or anything else, without healthy, eupeptic stomachs? and 
how are we to have such stomachs without good cooking? 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 25 

So that I reckon housekeeping to be just the last thing that 
any lady can afford to be ignorant of. The finest accom- 
plishment too that woman was ever beautified with. This 
part of woman's education, also, is to be gained at home ; 
it cannot be gained anywhere else. As for those young 5 
ladies who are above going into the kitchen, and learning 
this great art by actually working at it, my advice is, that 
they forthwith migrate to a world where the home and the 
family have no place, and where babies are not to be born 
and nursed. 10 

Our girls in school, then, should, first of all, be fashioned 
for intelligent, thoughtful, sober-minded women • + with 
souls attempered and attuned to the honest and ennobling 
delectations of the fireside ; their heads furnished and dis- 
posed to be prudent, skillful, dutiful wives and mothers and 15 
housekeepers ; home-loving and home-staying ; formed for 
steady loves, serene attachments, quiet virtues, and the 
whole flock of household pieties ; all suited to the office of 

A creature not too bright or good 

For human nature's daily food. 20 

The love of home, and the art of making home lovely, must 
be mainly acquired in the works and enjoyments of home ; 
and the best thing that the school can do is to cooperate 
with the home to that end. • 

But the most important item in this account, and that 25 
which is the main subject of what I have to say, is yet to 
come. 

We have reached a stage of civilization and general cul- 
ture in which both the virtue and the happiness of people 
depend very much on their intellectual forming and furnish- 30 
ing. And as this holds trtae alike of both sexes, so both will 



26 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

be included alike in the scope of what I have in mind to 
speak further. Books, of one sort or another, are now, on 
every hand, a common resort for entertainment and pleas- 
ure, and are likely to become more and more so. Wealth 
5 has greatly accumulated ; machinery has come to do a large 
part of our work ; and all sorts of people have more or less 
of leisure on their hands. This leisure ought not to be spent 
in idleness, neither will it be. + In the vacancy of their 
hands people's thoughts will needs be busy either for the 

10 better or for the worse : if their minds are not dressed for 
the abode of the Deity, they will be workshops of the Devil. 
And reading does in fact bear a large part in filling up such 
vacant time. 

Now, the world is getting full of devils, very potent ones 

15 too, in the shape of foolish and bad books. And I am apt 
to think the foolish devils in that shape even worse than 
the wicked : for they only begin the work of evil somewhat 
further off, so as to come at it the more surely ; and a slow 
creeping infection is more dangerous than a frank assault. 

20 Nothing so bad here as that which eludes or seduces the 
moral sentinels of the heart. I am not exactly a believer in 
the old doctrine of total depravity ; but I fear it must be 
confessed that the greater number of people take much 
more readily to that which is false and bad than to that 

25 which is good and true. Certainly what intoxicates and 
lowers stands a better chance with them than what sobers 
and elevates. Virtue and wisdom are an uphill road, where 
they do not advance without some effort ; folly and vice a 
downhill path, where it requires some effort not to advance. 

30 And this is quite as true in intellectual matters as in moral.* 
Here, to most people, delight in what is false and bad comes 
spontaneously ; delight in what is true and good is the slow 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 27 

result of discipline and care, and grows by postponement of 
impulse to law. 

I suspect it has been taken for granted much too gener- 
ally, that if people know how to read they will be apt enough 
to make good use of that knowledge without further con- 5 
cern. + A very great mistake ! This faculty is quite as liable 
to abuse as any other : probably there is none other more 
sadly abused at this very time ; none that needs to be more 
carefully fenced about with the safeguards of judgment and 
taste. Through this faculty crowds of our young people are 10 
let into the society of such things as can only degrade and 
corrupt, and, to a great extent, are positively drawn away 
from the fellowship of such as would elevate and correct. 
Most, probably not less than seven eighths, of the books now 
read are simply a discipline of debasement; ministering 15 
fierce stimulants and provocatives to the lower propensities, 
and habituating the thoughts to the mud and slime of literary 
cesspools and slop-cooks. 

I have indeed no faith in the policy or the efficacy of 
attempting to squelch these springs of evil by forcible 20 
sequestration, or to keep people from eating this poor devil- 
soup by muzzling them. If they will take to it, probably the 
best way is to let them have it ; perhaps it is best to act 
somewhat on the plan of glutting them with it, in the hope 
that so they may outgrow it : but something might well be 25 
essayed so to fit and prepare them as that they may not 
take to it, and may even turn away from it with disgust when 
it comes to them. Surely, at all events, the education that 
delivers people over to such feeding is a very doubtful good. 

In view of all which, it is clearly of the highest conse- 30 
quence, that from their early youth people should have their 
minds so bent # and disposed as to find pleasure in such 



28 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

books as are adapted to purify and raise. I say pleasure, 
because we cannot rely, neither ought we, on arguments of 
right in this matter.* Reading even good books without 
pleasure, and merely from a sense of duty, is of little benefit, 
5 and may even do hurt, by breeding insensibly an aversion 
to what is good, and by investing it with irksome associations. 
A genial delight in that which is good is what sets the colors 
of it in the mind : without this, the mind grows at odds with 
it. People cannot be droned or bored into virtue ; and if 

10 evil were made as tedious to them as good often is, I suspect 
their hearts would soon be weaned from ugliness, and won 
to a marriage with beauty. And the pith of my argument 
is, that it is what people take pleasure in that really shapes 
and determines their characters. So experience has taught 

15 me that the characters of students in college are influenced 
far more by their reading than by their studies. From the 
books they take to you may judge at once whither their 
spirits are tending, and what they are inwardly made of, 
because here they generally go by free choice and pleasure. 

20 In brief, they study what they must ; they read what they 
love ; and their souls are and will be in the keeping of their 
loves. Even the breath of excellence is apt to be lost, if it 
be not waited on by delight ; while, to love worthy objects, 
and in a worthy manner, is the top and crown of earthly 

25 good, ay, and of heavenly good also. Considering how clear 
and evident all this is, that so little is done, even in our highest 
seats of learning, to form the tastes and guide the reading 
of students, may well be matter of grief and astonishment. 
I have long wondered at it, and often sickened over it. 

30 Now, to fence against the growing pestilence of foolish 
and bad books, I know of but one way; and that is by 
endeavoring systematically so to familiarize .the young with 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 29 

the best and purest mental preparations, and so to prepossess 
them with the culture of that which is wholesome and good, 
that they may have an honest, hearty relish for it. The thing 
is, to plant the mind full of such loves, and so to set and 
form the intellectual tastes and habits, that the vicious and 5 
false will be spontaneously refused, and the healthy and true 
be freely preferred \ + this too, not from any novelty in it, 
but for the experienced sweetness and beauty of it, and for 
the quiet joy that goes in company with it. 

Let the efficacy of a very few good books be seasonably 10 
steeped into the mind, and then, in the matter of their 
reading, people will be apt to go right of their own accord ; 
and assuredly they will never be got to go right except of 
their own accord. You may thus hope to predispose and 
attune the faculties of choice to what is noble and sweet, 15 
before the springs of choice are vitiated by evil or ignorant 
conversations. If people have their tastes set betimes to 
such authors as Spenser and Shakespeare, Addison, Scott, 
Wordsworth, and Charles Lamb, is it likely that they will 
stomach such foul stuff as the literary slums and grogshops 20 
of the day are teeming with ? + I hope it is not so, and I 
will not readily believe it can be so. Nor can I see any 
impracticability, any insuperable difficulty here. Instances 
of native dullness or perversity there will indeed be, such as 
no soul music can penetrate : but that, as a general thing, 25 
young minds, yet undeflowered by the sensational flash and 
fury of vulgar bookmakers, will be found proof against the 
might and sweetness of that which is intellectually beautiful 
and good, provided they be held in communication with it 
long enough for its virtue to penetrate them, is what I will 30 
not, must not, believe, without a fairer trial than has yet 
been made. 



30 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

In reference to the foregoing points, a well-chosen and 
well-used course of study in the best English classics seems 
the most eligible and most effective preparation. Whether 
to the ends of practical use or of rational pleasure, this can- 
5 not but be the right line of early mental culture. The direct 
aids and inspirations of religion excepted, what better nurs- 
ery can there be of just thoughts and healthy tastes? 4 " 
what more apt to train and feed the mind for the common 
duties, interests, affections, and enjoyments of life? For 

10 the very process here stands in framing and disposing the 
mind for intercourse with the sayings of the wise, with the 
gathered treasures of light and joy, and with the meanings 
and beauties of Nature as seen by the eye, and interpreted 
by the pen, of genius and wisdom. 

15 We are getting sadly estranged from right ideas as to the 
nature and scope of literary workmanship. For literature, 
in its proper character, is nowise a something standing out- 
side of and apart from the practical service of life ; a 
sort of moonshine world, where the working understanding 

20 sleeps for the idle fancy to dream. This is no doubt true 
in regard to most of the books now read ; which are indeed 
no books, but mere devils and dunces in books' clothing ; 
but it is not at all true of books that are books indeed. 
These draw right into the substance and pith of actual 

25 things; the matter of them is " labor'd and distill'd through 
all the needful uses of our lives " ; the soul of their pur-, 
pose is to arm and strengthen the head, and to inspire and 
direct the hand, for productive work. That an author brings 
us face to face with real men and things, and helps us to 

30 see them as they are ; that he furnishes us with enable- 
ments for conversing rationally, and for wrestling effect- 
ively, with the problems of living, operative truth; that he 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 



31 



ministers guidance and support for thinking nobly and work- 
ing bravely in the services, through the perils, under the diffi- 
culties and adversities of our state, — this is the test and 
measure of his worth ; this is the sole basis of his claim to 
rank as a classic.^ This, to be sure, is not always done 5 
directly, neither ought it to be ; for the helps that touch 
our uses more or less indirectly often serve us best, because 
they call for and naturally prompt our own mental and 
moral cooperation in turning them to practical account. 

It is such literature that the poet has in view when he 10 

tells us, — 

books, we know. 

Are a substantial world, both pure and good : 

Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 

Our pastime and our happiness will grow. 15 

And books are yours, 
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies 
Preserved from age to age ; more precious far 
Than that accumulated store of gold 

And orient gems which, for a day of need, 20 

The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs : 
These hoards you can unlock at will. 

Nor is it the least benefit of such authors that they recon- 
cile and combine utility with pleasure, making each minis- 
trative to the other ; + so that the grace of pleasant thoughts 25 
becomes the sweeter for their usefulness, and the virtue of 
working thoughts the more telling for their pleasantness ; 
the two thus pulling and rejoicing together. For so the 
right order of mental action is where delight pays tribute to 
use, and use to delight ; and there is no worse corruption 30 
of literature in the long run than where these are divorced, 
and made to pull in different lines. Such pleasure is itself 
uplifting, because it goes hand in hand with duty. And as 



32 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

life, with its inevitable wants and cares and toils, is apt to 
be hard enough at the best with most of us, there is need 
of all the assuagements and alleviations that can come from 
this harmonizing process. Pressed as we are with heavy 
5 laws, happy indeed is he 

Who from the wellspring of his own clear breast 
Can draw, and sing his griefs to rest. 

Next to a good conscience and the aids of Christian faith, 
there is no stronger support under the burdens of our lot 

io than the companionship of such refreshing and soul-lifting 
thoughts as spring up by the wayside of duty, from our 
being at home with the approved interpreters of Nature 
and Truth. This is indeed to carry with us in our working 
hours a power 

15 That beautifies the fairest shore, 

And mitigates the harshest clime. 

Now I do not like to hear it said that our school education 
can do nothing towards this result. I believe, nay, I am 
sure, it can do much ; though I have to admit that it has 

20 done and is doing far less than it might. I fear it may even 
be said that our course is rather operating as a hindrance 
than as a help in this respect. What sort of reading are our 
schools planting an appetite for ? Are they really doing any- 
thing to instruct and form the mental taste, so that the pupils 

25 on leaving them may be safely left to choose their reading 
for themselves? It is clear in evidence that they are far from 
educating the young to take pleasure in what is intellectually 
noble and sweet. The statistics of our public libraries show 
that some cause is working mightily to prepare them only 

30 for delight in what is both morally and intellectually mean 
and foul.+ It would not indeed be fair to charge our public 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 33 

schools with positively giving this preparation ; but it is their 
business to forestall and prevent such a result. If, along 
with the faculty of reading, they cannot also impart some 
safeguards of taste and habit against such a result, will the 
system prove a success? 5 

As things now go, English literature is postponed to almost 
everything else in our public schools : much as ever it can 
gain admission at all ; and the most that can be got for it is 
merely such fag-ends of time as may possibly be spared from 
other studies. We think it a fine thing to have our children 10 
studying Demosthenes and Cicero ; but do not mind having 
them left almost totally ignorant of Burke and Webster. Yet, 
in the matter of practical learning, ay, and of liberal learning 
too, for deep and comprehensive eloquence, for instruction 
in statesmanship, and in the principles of civil order and 15 
social well-being, Burke alone is worth more than all the 
oratory of Greece and Rome put together ; + albeit I am 
far from meaning to disrepute the latter. And a few of 
Webster's speeches, besides their treasure of noble English, 
— "a manly style fitted to manly ears," — have in them 20 
more that would come home to the business and bosoms of 
our best American intelligence, more that is suited to the 
ends of a well-instructed patriotism, than all that we have 
inherited from the lips of ancient orators. + 

So, again, we spare no cost to have our children delving 25 
in the suburbs and outskirts of Homer and Virgil; for not 
one in fifty of them ever gets beyond these ; yet we take 
no pains to have thenf living in the heart of Shakespeare 
and Wordsworth : while there is in Shakespeare a richer 
fund of " sweetness and light," more and better food for 30 
the intellectual Soul, a larger provision of such thoughts as 
should dwell together with the spirit of a man, and be 



34 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

twisted about his heart forever, than in the collective poetry 
of the whole ancient heathen world. 

It may indeed be said that these treasures are in a lan- 
guage already known, and so are accessible to people with- 
5 out any special preparation ; and that the school is meant 
to furnish the keys to such wealth as would else be locked 
up from them. But our public schools leave the pupils with- 
out any taste for those native treasures, or any aptitude to 
enjoy them : the course there pursued does almost nothing 

io to fit and dispose the pupils for communing with the wis- 
dom and beauty enshrined in our mother tongue ; while 
hardly any so master the Greek and Latin as to hold com- 
munion with the intellectual virtue which they enshrine. 
Few, very few, after all, can be trained to love Homer; 

15 while there are, I must think, comparatively few who can- 
not be trained to love Shakespeare • + and the main thing 
is to plant that love. The point, then, is just here : Our 
schools are neither giving the pupils the key to the wisdom 
of Homer, nor disposing them to use the key to the wisdom 

20 of Shakespeare. And so the result is that, instead of bath- 
ing in the deep, clear streams of thought, ancient or modern, 
they have no taste but for waddling or wallowing in the 
shallow, turbid puddles of the time ; — 

Best pleased with what is aptliest framed 
25 To enervate and defile. 

It is a notorious fact that among our highly educated 
people, the graduates of our colleges, really good English 
scholars are extremely rare. I suspect it is not too much 
to say that among our instructors there are at least twenty 
30 competent to teach Greek and Latin, where there is one 
competent to teach English literature. 4 " Very few indeed 
of them are really at home in the great masters of our 



1 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 35 

native tongue, so as to make them matter of fruitful exer- 
cise in the class room. They know not how to come at 
them, or to shape their course in teaching them. Their 
minds are so engrossed with the verbal part of learning, 
that, unless they have a husk of words to stick in, as in 5 
studying a foreign tongue, they can hardly find where to 
stick at all. 

This habit, I suppose, comes mainly as a tradition from a 
former age ; a habit which, though begun upon good causes, 
has been kept up long after those causes were done away. 10 
The prevailing ideas herein got fixed at a time when there 
was no well-formed English literature in being; when the 
language itself was raw and rude ; and when the world's 
whole stock of intellectual wealth was enshrined in other 
tongues. The custom thus settled from necessity is contin- 15 
ued to this day, when the English tongue, besides its own 
vast fund of original treasure, has had the blood of all the 
best human thought transfused into its veins, and when its 
walks have grown rich and delectable with the spoils of every 
earlier fruitage of genius and learning. 20 

Three centuries ago Chaucer was the only really good Eng- 
lish author ; he was then two hundred years old ; and the 
language had changed so much since his time that reading 
him was almost like studying a foreign tongue. So much 
was this the case, that Bacon thought the English was going 25 
to bankrupt all books intrusted to its keeping : he therefore 
took care to have most of his own works translated into 
Latin ; and now our greatest regret touching him is, that we 
have not all those works in his own noble English. Before 
his time, the language changed more in fifty years than it has 30 
done in all the three hundred years since. This is no doubt 
because the mighty workmen of that age, himself among 



36 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

them, did so much to " bolt off change," by the vast treasures 
of thought and wisdom which they found or made the lan- 
guage capable of expressing. The work then so gloriously 
begun has been going on ever since, though not always with 
5 the same grand results; until now the English is commonly 
held to be one of the richest and noblest tongues ever 
spoken, and the English literature is, in compass and variety 
of intellectual wealth, unsurpassed by any in the world. 
How strange it is, then, that, with such immense riches at 

io hand in our vernacular, we should so much postpone them 
to the springs that were resorted to before those riches grew 
into being ! + Because Homer and Sophocles had to be 
studied before Shakespeare wrote, why should Shakespeare 
still be ignored in our liberal education, when his mighty 

15 works have dwarfed Homer and Sophocles into infants? 
There might indeed be some reason in this, if he had been 
in any sort the offspring of those Greek masters : but he was 
blessedly ignorant of them ; which may partly account for his 
having so much surpassed them. He did not conceive him- 

20 self bound to think and write as they did ; and this seems 
to have been one cause why he thought and wrote better 
than they did. I really can see no reason for insisting on 
learning from them rather than from him, except that 
learning from him is vastly easier. 

25 Nevertheless I am far from thinking that the Greek and 
Latin ought to be disused or made little of in our course of 
liberal learning."*" On the contrary, I would, of the two, have 
them studied in college even more thoroughly than they 
commonly are ; and this, not only because of their unequaled 

30 use in mental training and discipline, and as a preparation 
for solid merit and success in the learned professions, but 
also because a knowledge of them is so largely fundamental 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 37 

to a practical mastery of our own tongue. And here I am 
moved to note what seems to me a change for the worse 
within the last forty years. Forty years ago, besides that the 
Greek and Latin were made more of in college, at least 
relatively, than they are now, the students had both more 5 
time for English studies, and also more of judicious prompt- 
ing and guidance in their reading. But, of late, there has 
been so much crowding in of modern languages and recent 
branches of science, that students have a good deal less time 
than formerly for cultivating English literature by themselves, to 
In short, our colleges, it seems to me, did much more, forty 
years ago, towards setting and forming right literary and 
intellectual tastes than they are doing now. I believe they 
are now turning out fewer English scholars, and that these 
are not so well grounded and cultured in the riches of our 15 
native tongue. The fashion indeed has been growing upon 
us of educating the mouth much more than the mind ; which 
seems to be one cause why we are having so many more 
talkers and writers than thinkers. + An unappeasable itch of 
popularity is eating out the old love of solid learning, and 20 
the old relish for the haunts of the Muses. 

It may have been observed, that in this argument I dis- 
tinguish somewhat broadly between a liberal and a practical 
education. Our colleges ought to give, and, I suppose, aim 
di. giving the former ; while the latter is all that our public 25 
schools can justly be expected to give. And a large majority 
of the pupils, as I said before, are to gain their living 
by handwork, not by headwork. But then we want them 
made capable of solid profit and of honest delight in the 
conversation of books ; for this, as things now are, is essen- 30 
tial both to their moral health and also to their highest 
success in work ; to say nothing of their duties and interests 



38 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

as citizens of a republican State. And, to this end, what can 
be more practical, in the just sense of the term, than planting 
and nursing in them right intellectual tastes, so that their 
reading shall take to such books as are really wholesome and 
5 improving? 

On the general subject, however, I have to remark further, 
that our education, as it seems to me, is greatly overworking 
the study of language, especially in the modern languages. 
From the way our young people are hurried into French 

10 and German, one would suppose there were no English 
authors worth knowing, nor any thought in the English tongue 
worth learning. So w r e cram them with words, and educate 
them into ignorance of things, and then exult in their being 
able to " speak no sense in several languages." Surely a 

15 portion of the time might be as innocently spent in learning 
something worth speaking in plain mother English. When 
we add that, with all this wear and tear of brain, the pupils, 
ten to one, stick in the crust of words, and never get through 
into the marrow of thought, so as to be at home in it, our 

20 course can hardly be deemed the perfection of wisdom. 

Our custom herein seems to involve some flagrant defect 
or error in our philosophy of education. The true process 
of education is to set and keep the mind in living inter- 
course with things : the works and ways of God in Nature 

25 are our true educators. And the right office of language is 
to serve as the medium of such intercourse. And so the 
secret of a good style in writing is, that words be used purely 
in their representative character, and not at all for their own 
sake. 4 " This is well illustrated in Shakespeare, who in his 

30 earlier plays used language partly for its own sake ; but in 
his later plays all traces of such use disappear : here he uses 
it purely in its representative character. This it is, in great 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 39 

part, that makes his style so much at once the delight and 
the despair of those who now undertake to write the English 
tongue. And in other writers excellence of style is measured 
by approximation to this standard. This it is that so highly 
distinguishes Webster's style, — the best yet written on this 5 
continent. His language is so transparent, that in reading 
him one seldom thinks of it, and can hardly see it. In fact, 
the proper character of his style is perfect, consummate 
manliness ; in which quality I make bold to affirm that he 
has no superior in the whole range of English authorship. 10 
And in his Autobiography the great man touches the secret 
as to how this came about. "While in college," says he, 
" I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which were 
published. I trust they are forgotten : they were in very bad 
taste. I had not then learned that all true power in writing 15 
is in the idea, not in the style ; an error into which the Ars 
rhetorica, as it is usually taught, may easily lead stronger 
heads than mine." 

Hence it follows that language should be used and studied 
mainly in its representative character ; that is, as a medium 20 
for conversing with things ; and that studying it merely or 
even mainly for its own sake is a plain inversion of the 
right order. For words are of no use but as they bring us 
acquainted with the facts, objects, and relations of Nature 
in the world about us. The actual things and ideas which 25 
they stand for, or are the signs of, are what we ought to 
know and have commerce with. In our vernacular, words 
are, for the most part, naturally and unconsciously used in 
this way ; except where a perverse system has got us into a 
habit of using them for their own sake ; which is indeed the 30 
common bane of American authorship, making our style so 
intensely self-conscious, that an instructed taste soon tires 



40 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

of it. But, in studying a foreign tongue, the language itself 
is and has to be the object of thought. Probably not one in 
fifty of our college graduates learns to use the Greek and 
Latin freely as a medium of converse with things. Their 
5 whole mental force is spent on the words themselves ; or, if 
they go beyond these to the things signified, it is to help 
their understanding of the words. 

I freely admit that language, even our own, ought to be, 
to some extent, an object of study; but only to the end 

10 of perfecting our use and mastery of it as a medium. So 
that the true end of mental action is missed, where language 
is advanced into an ultimate object of study ; which is prac- 
tically making the end subordinate to the means. Here, 
however, I am anxious not to be misunderstood, and lest I 

15 may seem to strain the point too far; for I know full well 
that in such a cause nothing is to be gained by breaches of 
fairness and candor. It is a question of relative measure 
and proportion. And I mean that our education treats lan- 
guage quite too much as an object of thought, and quite too 

20 little as a medium. Our students, it seems to me, are alto- 
gether too much brought up in " the alms-basket of words " ; 
and of too many of them it may not unfairly be said, " They 
have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the 
scraps." 

25 I have said that our custom in this matter stands partly as 
a tradition from a long-past age when there was no English 
literature in being. But this does not wholly explain it. The 
thing proceeds in great part from a perverse vanity of going 
abroad and sporting foreign gear, unmindful of the good 

30 that lies nearer home. Hence boys and girls, especially the 
latter, are hurried into studying foreign languages before 
they have learned to spell correctly or to read intelligibly in 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 41 

their own. I say girls especially, because, since the women 
set out to equal, perhaps to eclipse, the men in brain power, 
a mighty ambition has invaded them to be flourishing their 
lingual intellectuality in our faces. Besides, the fashion now 
is to educate young women for any place rather than for 5 
home. Most of them hope some time to spend six months 
traveling in Europe ; and they think far more of preparing 
for that holiday than for all the working-day honors and 
services of life. And I fear it must be said withal, that we 
are the most apish people on the planet. I wish we may 10 
not prove " the servum pecus of a Gallic breed." Be that as 
it may, parents among us apparently hold it a much grander 
thing to have their children chopping Racine and Voltaire 
than conversing with the treasures of wisdom and beauty in 
our own tongue ; as if smattering French words were better 15 
than understanding English and American things. 

Thus our school education is growing to be very much a 
positive dispreparation for the proper cares, duties, inter- 
ests, and delectations of life. The further a thing draws 
from any useful service or common occasion, the more pride 20 
there is in studying it. Whatever will serve best to prank 
up the mind for flaunting out its life away from home, that 
seems to be our first concern. To this end, we prefer some- 
thing out of the common way; something that can be turned 
to no account, save to beguile a frivolous and fashionable 25 
leisure, or to mark people off from ordinary humanity, and 
wrap them up in the poor conceit of an aristocratic style. In 
short, we look upon the honest study of our honest mother 
English as a vulgar thing ; + and it pleases us to forget that 
this squeamish turning up of the nose at what is near and 30 
common is just the vulgarest thing in the world. Surely 
we cannot too soon wake up to the plain truth, that real 



42 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

honor and elevation, as well as solid profit, are to grow by 
conversing with the things that live and work about us, and 
by giving our studious hours to those masters of English 
thought from whom we may learn to read, soberly, modestly, 
5 and with clear intelligence, a few pages in the book of life. 
The chief argument in support of the prevailing custom 
is, that the study of languages, especially the Greek and 
Latin, is highly serviceable as a mental gymnastic. No doubt 
it is so. But the study, as it is managed with us, may be 

10 not unfairly charged with inverting the true relative im- 
portance of mental gymnastic and mental diet. Formerly 
the Greek and Latin were held to be enough ; but now, by 
adding three or four modern languages, we are making the 
linguistic element altogether too prominent. We thus give 

15 the mind little time for feeding, little matter to feed upon; 
and so keep it exercising when it ought to be feeding : for 
so the study of words has much exercise and little food. 
Now, such an excess of activity is not favorable to healthy 
growth. Substituting stimulants for nourishment is as bad 

20 for the mind as for the body. Supply the mind with whole- 
some natural food ; do all you can to tempt and awaken 
the appetite ; and then trust somewhat to Nature. True, 
some minds, do your best, will not eat ; but, if they do not 
eat, then they ought not to act. For dullness, let me tell 

25 you, is not so bad as disease ; and, from straining so hard 
to stimulate and force the mind into action without eating, 
nothing but disease can result. Depend upon it, there is 
something wrong with us here : food and exercise are not 
rightly proportioned in our method. In keeping the young 

30 mind so much on a stretch of activity, as if the mere exer- 
cise of its powers were to be sought for its own sake, we are 
at war with Nature. And a feverish, restless, mischievous 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 43 

activity of mind is the natural consequence of such a course ; 
unless, which is sometimes the case, the mental forces get 
dried into stiffness from mere heat of gymnastic stress. 

We are now having quite too much of this diseased men- 
tal activity. Perhaps our greatest danger lies in a want of 5 
mental repose. The chronic nervous intensity thus gener- 
ated is eating the life out of us, and crushing the nobler 
energies of duty and virtue, ay, and of sound intelligence 
too. + For, while we are thus overworking the mind, the 
muscular and nutritive systems of course suffer; so that, 10 
first we know, the mind itself gives out; and people go 
foolish or crazy from having been educated all into nerves. 
Composure is the right pulse of mental health, as it is also 
of moral ; and " a heart that watches and receives " will 
gather more of wisdom than a head perpetually on the jump. 15 
We need " the harvest of a quiet eye," that feeds on the 
proportions of Truth as she beams from the works of Nature 
and from the pages of Nature's high priests. But now we 
must be in a giddy whirl of brain excitement, else we are 
miserable, and think our mental faculties are in peril of 20 
stagnation. Of intellectual athletes we have more than 
enough; men, and women too, who think to renovate the 
world, and to immortalize themselves, by being in a con- 
tinual rapture and tumult of brain exercise ; minds hope- 
lessly disorbed from the calmness of reason, and held in a 25 
ft ver of activity from sheer lack of strength to sit still. It 
was such minds that Bacon had in view when he described 
nan in a certain state as being " a busy, mischievous, 
wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin." To be 
' tellectual, to write books, to do wonders in mental pyro- 30 
techny, is not the chief end of man, nor can we make it so. 
This is indeed what we seem to be aiming at, but we shall 



44 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

fail; Nature will prove too strong for lis here: and, if we 
persist, she will just smash us up, and replace us with a 
people not so tormentedly smart. It is to the meek, not 
the brilliant, that the possession of the earth is promised. 

5 My conclusion from the whole is, that, next to the ele- 
mentary branches, and some parts of science, such as geog- 
raphy, astronomy, and what is called natural philosophy, 
standard authors in English literature ought to have a place 
in our school education. Nor am I sure but that, instead 

io of thus postponing the latter to science, it were still better 
to put them on an equal footing with it. For they draw 
quite as much into the practical currents of our American 
life as any studies properly scientific do ; and, which is of 
yet higher regard, they have it in them to be much more 

15 effective in shaping the character. For they are the right 
school of harmonious culture as distinguished from mere 
formal knowledge ; that is, they are a discipline of human- 
ity : and to have the soul rightly alive to the difference 
between the noble and the base is better than under- 

20 standing the laws of chemical affinity. 

As to the best way of teaching English literature, I may 
speak the more briefly on this, inasmuch as a good deal to 
the point has been, I hope not obscurely, implied in the 
remarks already made. 

25 In the first place, I am clear that only a few of the ve 
best and fittest authors should be used ; and that the* 
should be used long enough, and in large enough portion:, 
for the pupils to get really at home with them, and for th, 
grace and efficacy of them to become thoroughly steepe< 

30 into the mind. Bacon tells us that " some books are to bj 
tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewec 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 45 

and digested." Of course it is only the latter that I deem 
worthy to be used in school. And I lay special stress on 
the pupil's coming at an author in such a way, and staying 
with him so long, as to study him with honest love and 
delight. This is what sets and fixes the taste. And this is a 5 
thing that cannot be extemporized : the process necessarily 
takes considerable time. For wise men's thoughts are a 
presence to live in, to feed upon, and to grow into the like- 
ness of. And the benefit of a right good book all depends 
upon this, that its virtue just soak into the mind, and there 10 
become a living, generative force. 

Do you say that this shuts off from pupils the spur and 
charm of novelty ? Yes, that it does, else I would not urge 
it. What I want first of all is to shut off the flashy, fugitive 
charm of novelty, so as to secure the solid, enduring charm 15 
of truth and beauty ; for these are what it does the soul 
good to be charmed with, and to tie up in the society 
of, — the charm of a " concord that elevates and stills"; 
while the charm of novelty is but as " the crackling of -< 
thorns under a pot," — not the right music for soul-sweet- 20 
ening. " A thing of beauty is a joy forever." And ihey 
know nothing of the genesis of the human affections, who 
have not learned that these thrive best in the society of old 
familiar faces. To be running and rambling over ,a great 
many books, tasting a little here, a little there, and tying up 25 
ft ith none, is good for nothing in school ; nay, worse man 
wothing. Such a process of " unceasing change" is jlIso 
ri, discipline of " perpetual emptiness." It is as if a man 
1 hould turn free-lover, and take to himself a new >yjfe every 
week; in which case I suppose he would soon. become in- 30 
different to them all, and conclude one wonfiin to be just 
about as good as another. The household ""affections do not 



46 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

grow in that way. And the right method in the culture of 
the mind is to take a few choice books, and weave about 

them 

the fix'd delights'of house and home, 
5 Friendships that will not break, and love that cannot roam. 

Again : In teaching English literature, I think it is not 
best to proceed much, if at all, by recitations, but by what 
may be called exercises ; the pupils reading the author 
under the direction, correction, and explanation of the 

10 teacher. The thing is to have the pupils, with the teacher's 
help and guidance, commune with the author while in class, 
and quietly drink in the sense and spirit of his workman- 
ship. Such communing together of teacher and pupils with 
the mind of a good book cannot but be highly fruitful to 

15 them both : an interplay of fine sympathies and inspira- 
tions will soon spring up between them, and pleasant sur- 
prises of truth and good will be stealing over them. The 
process indeed can hardly fail to become a real sacrament 
of the heart between them ; for they will here find how 

20 "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 

Nor would I attempt to work into these exercises any- 
thing of grammar or rhetoric or philology, any further than 
this may be clearly needful or conducive to a full and 
fair understanding of the matter read. + To use a standard 

25 author mainly as a theme or text for carrying on studies in 
philology, is in my account just putting the cart before the 
horse. Here the end is or should be to make the pupils 
understand and relish what the author delivers ; and what- 
ever of philological exercise comes in should be held strictly e 

30 subordinate to this. 

With my classes in Shakespeare and Wordsworth, as also 
in Burke and Webster, I am never at all satisfied, unless I 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 47 

see the pupils freely taking pleasure in the workmanship. 
For such delight in a good book is to me a sure token and 
proof that its virtue is striking in and going to the spot. 4 " 
Rather say, it is a pledge, nay, it is the very pulsation, of 
sympathy and vital magnetism between the mind within 5 
and the object without.* And without this blessed infection 
beaming in the face and sparkling in the eyes, even the 
honest striving of duty on the pupil's part rather dis- 
courages me. So, unless I can get the pupils to be ,happy 
in such communion, I am unhappy myself ; and this, I sup- 10 
pose, because it is naturally unpleasant to see people stand- 
ing in the presence and repeating the words of that which 
is good, and tasting no sweetness therein. For "what is 
noble should be sweet " ; and ought, if possible, to be bound 
up with none but pleasant associations ; that so delight and 1 5 
love may hold the mind in perpetual communion with the 
springs of health and joy. And if I can plant in young 
minds a genuine relish for the authors I have named, then 
I feel tolerably confident that the devils now swarming 
about us in the shape of bad books will stand little chance 20 
with them ; for I know right well that those authors have 
kept legions of such devils off from me. 

From all which it ^follows, next, that, in teaching English 
literature, I would have nothing to do with any works in 
formal rhetoric, or with any general outlines, or any rapid 25 
and wide surveys, or any of the school reading books now 
in use, which are made up of mere chips from a multitude 
of authors, and so can have little effect but to generate a 
rambling and desultory habit of mind. + To illustrate my 
meaning, it may not be amiss to observe, that some years ago 30 
I knew of a programme being set forth officially, which em- 
braced little bits from a whole rabble of American authors, 



48 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

most of them still living; but not a single sentence from 
Daniel Webster, who, it seems to me, is perhaps the only 
American author that ought to have been included in the list. 
This programme was drawn up for a course in English litera- 
5 ture to be used in the public schools. Instead of such a mis- 
cellaneous collection of splinters, my thought was then, and 
is now, Give us a good large block of Webster ; enough for 
at least two exercises a week through half a year. This 
would afford a fair chance of making the pupils really at 

10 home with one tall and genuine roll of intellectual manhood ; 
which done, they would then have something to guide and 
prompt them into the society of other kindred rolls : whereas, 
with the plan proposed, there is no chance of getting them 
at home with any intellectual manhood at all ; nay, rather, it 

15 is just the way to keep them without any intellectual home, — 
a nomadic tribe of literary puddle-sippers. 

As for the matter of rhetoric, all that can be of much use 
in this is, I think, best learned in the concrete, and by famil- 
iarizing the mind with standard models of excellence. 4 " For 

20 the right use of speech goes by habit, not by rule. And if 
people should happen to use their vernacular clearly and 
handsomely without knowing why, where is the harm of it? 
Is not that enough? What more do you want? If you 
would learn to speak and write the English tongue correctly, 

25 tastefully, persuasively, leave the rhetorics behind, and give 
your days and nights to the masters of English style. This 
will tend to keep you from all affectation of " fine writing," 
than which literature has nothing more empty and vapid. 
Besides, it is only after the mind has grown largely and 

30 closely conversant with standard authors, that studying rhe- 
torical rules and forms can be of much practical use, how- 
ever it may do for showing off in recitation. And I am in 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 49 

doubt whether it were not better omitted even then : for such 
study, in so far as it is trusted in for forming a good style, 
can hardly work anything but damage in that respect ; and 
this because it naturally sets one to imitating other men's 
verbal felicities ; which is simply a pestilent vice of style. 5 
Therewithal the study is but too apt to possess the student, 
perhaps unconsciously, with the notion that men are to 
" laugh by precept only, and shed tears by rule " ; a sort of 
laughter and tears from which I shall beg to be excused. 
On this point, my first, second, and third counsel is, — 10 

the live current quaff, 
And let the groveler sip his stagnant pool, 
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool 
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. 

Against the course I have been marking out, the objection 15 
is sometimes urged that it would cut pupils off from contem- 
porary authors. It would do so indeed, and I like it the 
better for that. I have already implied that no literary 
workmanship, short of the best there is to be had, ought to 
be drawn upon for use in school. For the natural alliance 20 
of taste and morals is much closer than most people suppose. 
In fact, taste is, in my account, a kind of intellectual con- 
science : downright, perfect honesty is the first principle of 
it; solidity is its prime law ; and all sorts of pretense, affec- 
tation, and sham are its aversion : so that it amounts to about 25 
the same thing as the perfect manliness which I find in Web- 
ster's style. — Now, for the due approval of excellence in 
literary art, a longer time than the individual life is commonly 
required. Of the popular writers now living, probably not 
one in five hundred will be heard of thirty years hence. I 30 
have myself outlived two generations of just such immortal 
writers, — whole regiments of them. Of course there are 



50 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

fashions in literature, as in other things. These are apt to be 
bad enough at the best, — bad enough anywhere ; but the 
school is just the last place, except the church, where they 
ought to be encouraged. Be assured that, in the long run, 
5 it will not pay to have our children in school making 
acquaintance with the fashionable writers of the day. For, 
long before the pupils now in school reach maturity, another 
set of writers will be in popular vogue ; their tenure to be 
equally transient in turn. 

io Unquestionably the right w r ay in this matter is, to start the 
young with such authors as have been tested and approved 
by a large collective judgment.* For it is not what pleases at 
first, but what pleases permanently, that the human mind 
cares to keep alive. What has thus withstood the wear of 

15 time carries solid proof of having strength and virtue in it. 
For example, poetry that has no holiness in it may be, for it 
often has been, vastly popular in its day ; but it has and can 
have no lasting hold on the heart of man. True, there may 
be good books written in our day ; I think there are : but 

20 there needs a longer trial than one generation to certify us 
of the fact, so as to warrant us in adopting an author for 
standard use. And that a new book seems to us good, may 
be in virtue of some superficial prepossession which a larger 
trial will utterly explode. We need better assurance than 

25 that. 

It is indeed sometimes urged that, if the young be thus 

I trained up with old authors, they will be in danger of falling 

behind the age. + But it is not so. The surest way of coming 

at such a result is by preengaging them with the literary 

30 freaks and fashions and popularities of the day. To hold 
them aloof from such flitting popularities, to steep their minds 
in the efficacy of such books as have always been, and are 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 5 I 

likely to be, above the fashion of the day, — this is the true 
course for setting them in advance of the time ; and, unless 
they be set in advance of it, they will certainly fail to keep 
abreast with it. For the wisdom 'that has had the long and 
strong approval of the past, is most -likely to be the wisdom 5 
of the future ; and the way to keep pace with the age is 
by dwelling with its wisdom, not with its folly. In fact, 
a taste for the shifting literary fashions and popularities of 
the hour springs from shallowness and leads to shallow- 
ness. And to knit your pupils up close with old standards, 10 
is the best thing you can do for them, both mentally and 
morally. 

And I confess I like to see the young growing enthusiastic 
over the treasured wisdom and eloquence of their fore- 
fathers. This is a natural and wholesome inspiration, and 15- 
such as the soul can hardly drink in or catch without being 
lifted and expanded by it. Worth much for the knowledge 
it furthers, it is worth far more for the manhood it quickens. 
And I think none the worse of it, that it may do somewhat 
towards chastising down the miserable conceit now so rife 20 
amongst us, that light never really dawned on the world till 
about that glorious time when our eyes were first opened, 
and we began to shed our wisdom abroad. To be sure, the 
atmosphere of the past now stands impeached as being a 
very dull and sleepy atmosphere : nevertheless I rather like 25 
it, and think I have often found much health and comfort in 
breathing it. Some old writer tells us that " no man having 
drunk old wine straightway desireth the new ; for he saith 
the old is better." I am much of the same opinion. In 
short, old wine, old books, old friends, old songs, " the 30 
precious music of the heart," are the wine, the books, the 
friends, the songs for me ! 



52 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Besides, we have quite enough of the present outside of 
the school ; and one of our greatest needs at this very time 
is more of inspiration from the past. Living too much in the 
present is not good either for the mind or for the heart : 
5 its tendency is to steep the soul in the transient popularities 
of the hour, and to vulgarize the whole man. Not that the 
present age is worse than former ages ; it may even be better 
as a whole : but what is bad or worthless in an age gener- 
ally dies with the age : so that only the great and good of 

io the past touches us ; while of the present we are most touched 
by that which is little and mean. The shriekings and jab- 
berings of an age's folly almost always drown, for the time 
being, the eloquence of its wisdom : but the eloquence lives 
and speaks after the jabberings have gone silent, God's air 

15 refusing to propagate them. So let our youth now and then 
breathe and listen an hour or two in the old intellectual 
fatherland, where all the foul noises have long since died 
away, leaving the pure music to sound up full and clear.* 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 1 

Shakespeare's dramas, confessedly the greatest classic and 
literary treasure of the world, — the Bible only excepted, — 
are rapidly growing into use as a text-book in schools and 
institutions of learning. A close and regular course of study 
in them has at length come to be widely recognized as 5 
among our very best means both for acquiring a right 
knowledge and use of the English tongue, and also, which 
is of still more importance, for conversing with the truth 
of things. 

Some of the plays, however, owing to the nature of the 10 
subjects and to the Poet's mode of treating them, are quite 
impracticable for such use, and cannot be made suitable 
without so much of amputation as would, in effect, let all 
the lifeblood out of them. Others of them, again, and such 
withal as are the very best for study in class, have more or 15 
less of matter in them which, while nowise essential to the 
proper health and integrity of the work, is greatly in the 
way, and sometimes so embarrassing as to hinder seriously 
both the pleasure and the profit of the study. All of them, 
moreover, for obvious reasons, need a certain measure and 20 
style of annotation, specially adapted, as far as may be, to 
rendering the Poet's language, imagery, and allusions intel- 
ligible and interesting to young minds, who cannot be 

1 Reprinted, with certain changes and omissions, from the Editors 
Preface to the first volume of his School Shakespeare, as originally 
published in 1870. 

53 



54 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

supposed to be rquch at home in the peculiarities of Eng- 
lish thought and expression three hundred years ago. 

Hence a need has come to be strongly and extensively 
felt, of a selection of Shakespeare's plays, prepared and set 

5 forth with a special eye to the use in question. I have 
received many assurances of this from others, and have 
found abundant evidence of it in my own case. A pretty 
long and large and varied experience in teaching Shake- 
speare in class has brought home to me, beyond peradven- 

10 ture, the pressing occasion of some such w r ork as is here 
offered to the public. And the want, be it observed, is not 
of mere chips and fragments of the Poet, but of whole 
plays, with the development of character and the course of 
action preserved unmutilated and entire, and with only such 

15 erasures as are really demanded by the just proprieties of 
intercourse between teacher and pupils, and of pupils with 
one another. 

The plays, in all cases, are given entire, save the bare 
omission of such lines and expressions as I have always 

20 deemed it necessary to omit in class. 4 " The omissions, I 
believe, do not in any case reach so far as to impair in 
the least either the delineation of character or the dramatic 
action. On the other hand, I have not meant to retain 
any matter not fairly pronounceable in any class, how- 

25 ever composed. My own opinion clearly is, that if Shake- 
speare cannot be used as a text-book without overstepping 
the just bounds of modest and decorous speech, then such 
use were better not attempted. For purity and rectitude 
of manners are worth more than any intellectual benefit 

30 to be derived from the poetry and wisdom even of a 
Shakespeare. In Julius Ccesar, for instance, as also in 
King Richard 77, I have not found occasion to cut out or 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 55 

change anything whatsoever; there being, as I think, not 
a single word in those plays unfit to cross the chariest lips. 
And in several others the omissions are very slight indeed, 
sometimes not extending to more than half a dozen lines in 
a whole play. 5 

Having said thus much, it seems but due to add, that 
I hold Shakespeare's workmanship to be everywhere free 
from the least blame of moral infection or taint : I know 
of no passage that can be hurtful to any fair mind, if taken 
in its proper connection with the whole. But of course 10 
everybody knows that there may be many things right and 
proper in themselves, which however ought not to be spoken, 
and which it is very desirable not to have before the eye, in 
the sacred intercourse of teacher and pupils. 

Xo pains have been spared, either in preparing the copy 15 
or in correcting the proofs, to set forth a pure and accurate 
text of the Poet. In many cases of various readings, there 
are, and probably always will be, considerable differences of 
opinion as to which is the best. In this matter, I can 
but claim to have used my best judgment, such as it is 20 
after more than forty years' study of the Poet. 

In the matter of annotation, it is not easy to hit just 
the right medium between too much and too little. Here, 
again, I have been mainly guided by the results of my own 
experience in teaching; aiming to give so many and such 25 
notes as I have found needful or conducive to a full and clear 
understanding of the Poet's thought. Besides the need of 
economizing space, I have wished to avoid distracting or 
diverting the student's attention overmuch from the special 
object-matter of the Poet's scenes. 30 

And here I feel moved to protest against Shakespeare's 
being used, as some apparently would use him, too much as 



V 56 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

a mere occasion for carrying on general exercises in grammar 
and philology. These, to be sure, are essential parts of a 
right English schooling ; but they can be learned just as well 
from other books, — books which it is no sin not to love, 
5 and no loss to forget after leaving school. And in studying 
Shakespeare the pupil's mind should be put as closely and 
directly as possible in intelligent sympathy with the Poet's 
own mental deliverances ; everything else being made strictly 
subordinate to this. In other words, the purpose should 

10 ever be kept foremost to teach or to learn Shakespeare, and 
not to use him as a means of teaching or learning something 
else. With him, preeminently, language is the medium, not 
the object of thought, insomuch that he seems to have used 
it almost unconsciously. It is true, his language, especially 

15 with beginners, must needs be itself made more or less an 
object of study ; but this should be done so far only as is 
necessary in order to its proper efficacy as a medium of 
communion with his men and women, and with the transpi- 
rations of character and the workings of human nature as 

20 presented in them. 

Shakespeare, be it remembered, is not one of those books 
which are of no further use after being studied in school, or 
which are as scaffoldage, to be thrown aside as soon as the 
roof is on ; and it is better he should not be used as a text- 

25 book at all, than that such use should be so conducted as to 
breed a dislike of him : and some care may well be taken 
against pushing the grammatical and linguistic part of the 
study so far as to obstruct the proper virtue of his pages, and 
lest the effect be rather to quench than kindle the faculties 

30 and susceptibilities for that which is most living and opera- 
tive in him, or for what may be called the Shakespeare of 
Shakespeare. 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 57 

It is what young people learn to take pleasure in, what 
they build up happy thoughts and associations about, and 
what steals smoothly and silently into the heart, and there 
becomes a vital treasure of delight, that mainly determines 
their characters. In comparison with this, mere intellectual 5 
acquirements and furnishings, and even ethical arguments 
and convictions, are of insignificant value. " The forms of 
young imagination" have more force than anything else to 
keep the heart pure. To preoccupy the mind with right 
tastes and noble loves, and with a stock of grand and pure 10 
conceptions, and thus to foreclose, as far as may be, the invi- 
tations of what is false and flashy and sensational, the intel- 
lectual fashions and frivolities and diseases of the day, is 
the first principle of all wise and wholesome training both 
in school and at home. For this process and to this end, 15 
except the Bible, we have nothing better than the dramas 
of Shakespeare. And the best fruit of studying him is to 
come by letting the efficacies of his genius insinuate them- 
selves quietly into " the eye and prospect of the soul," and 
by binding his creations home upon the thoughts and aftec- 20 
tions as a fund of inexhaustible sweetness and refreshment. 
And there is probably more danger that teachers will hinder 
this process by overworking some subsidiary matter, than 
that the process will fail to take care of itself, provided the 
pupils be set and held in free and natural communication 25 
with the Poet ; all exercises in grammar and philology being 
used simply to aid, and not to disturb, the clear apprehen- 
sion of what he delivers. 

Such are the thoughts which have been uppermost in 
my mind, and have mainly shaped my course, in prepar- 30 
ing the notes. How far the execution accords with my 
design and makes it good, is not for me to judge. In my 



58 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

teaching, especially with younger classes, I of course often 
go much more into the details of verbal and syntactical 
exegesis than is shown in the annotation. But it is presumed 
that every one who may undertake to teach Shakespeare will 
5 be sufficiently booked in the logic of grammar, the laws of 
language, and the construction and analysis of sentences, to 
carry on the work out of his own head, and as he finds it 
needful or profitable to do so. Textual explanation is an- 
other matter indeed, and may need to be prosecuted some- 

10 what further; for the Poet's style is intensely idiomatic, 
generally charged with metaphoric audacity, often over- 
crammed with meaning, and sometimes very obscure : yet 
even here it is thought that much had better be left to the 
occasions and resources of individual teachers. For, after 

15 all, nothing but a pretty thorough steeping of the teacher's 

mind in the Shakespearean idiom can bring him fairly through 

this part of his work. If he be not himself at home with 

Shakespeare, he can hardly expect to make others so. 

As to the method, or methods of teaching in Shakespeare, 

20 here again much should and indeed must be left to indi- 
vidual judgment and adaptation. This is a thing not capa- 
ble of being stereotyped, and passed on from hand to hand. 
The method that works very well in one man's hands may 
not work at all in another's. Thus much, however, may 

25 be not unfitly spoken, that I do not believe at all in 
turning the schoolroom into a playhouse or anything of 
that sort. My work and method in class aim at a mixed 
and varied exercise in reading, language, character, versifi- 
cation, and art. Especially I make much of reading, both 

30 for the utility and the accomplishment of it : + this, in 
fact, is the groundwork of all my instructions ; and in order- 
ing this I drive, or endeavor to drive, right at the simple 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 59 

truth of the matter, and at a sincere and natural expression 
of it. In other words, all my efforts in this behalf are meant 
to converge at the point of bringing the pupils first to under- 
stand the Poet's lines fairly, and then so to pronounce them 
that an intelligent listener may understand them ; taking for 5 
granted that, if this point be secured, the proper moral, 
intellectual, and aesthetic effect of them will follow of its 
own accord ; and the more silent and unobserved its coming 
is, the better. 

I therefore neither practice nor encourage any straining 10 
or forcing of the process : any using of the whip or the 
spur he regards as out of place : however lively and intense 
the exertion of the student's faculties may be, I aim to 
have it spontaneous, genial, and free ; the result of inward 
kindling, not of external pressure. Thus the process, through- 15 
out, on the part of the pupils, is meant to be a quiet, gentle, 
yet earnest communing with the Poet's forms and with the 
spirit of them, so that their grace and efficacy may pass 
secretly and insensibly into the mind ; because the less the 
pupils are at the time conscious of getting from him, the 20 
more they will really get. And I am right well persuaded, 
withal, that exercises in Shakespeare may be and ought to 
be so conducted, that the students shall be fresher and 
stronger at the close of them than at the beginning. 

To induce just and clear perceptions of the Poet's charac- 25 
ters ; to bring pupils to discriminate and taste their distinc- 
tive lines of mental, moral, and practical physiognomy ; to 
make them enter into their idioms of thought and manner, 
their springs, modes, and vitalities of action, — this is a 
higher and riper and slower process. There must needs be 30 
a certain measure of preparation for it, and this, of course, 
cannot be extemporized. Yet, this part of the exercise left 



60 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

out, the study can be little but a dry training in the letter of 
the Poet's workmanship, without the life and substance of it. 
Besides, it is this personal acquaintance and convivation 
with the Poet's men and women that makes, more than any- 
5 thing else, the perennial verdure and charm of his scenes. 
No one who once gets to be thus inward and at home with 
his delineations can ever weary of them or outgrow the 
interest of them ; for, so taken, " age cannot wither them, 
nor custom stale their infinite variety." 

10 Which naturally raises the question, At what age should 
the study of Shakespeare be undertaken? And the answer is, 
Not till the student is, at least in some fair degree, capable 
of this part of the exercise. But young people are, or may 
be made, apprehensive and receptive of characteristic traits 

15 as delivered in forms of art, earlier than most of us are apt 
to suppose. Featurely expression in picture, fable, and 
poetry, is not so very hard a thing for the youthful faculties 
to catch and take in the virtue of. And it may be safely 
presumed that, if average minds be duly placed and held 

20 within the reach of Shakespeare's light and warmth, their 
latent aptitudes for the exercise in question will germinate 
and grow as early as, say, the middle period of ordinary 
academic life. They can at least be started in the process 
by that time, if not before. At all events, using my own 

25 experience, as well as the reason of the thing, for my 
test and guide, I can hardly think it a good use either of 
the time or of the book, for pupils to enter upon the study 
of Shakespeare, until they are prepared to go along with him 
in those points of his cunning workmanship. There is quite 

30 too much of crowding and cramming in our education 
already ; the effects of which may be seen in a pretty large 
stock of intellectual and moral shoddy \ and any extending 



SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 6l 

of this process into the walks of Shakespeare cannot be too 
earnestly deprecated, or too carefully avoided. 

As to exercises in the Poet's versification and art, I 
never attempt to prosecute these at all, except in his 
older classes ; + the former because it is too dry, the 5 
latter because it is too high. Moreover, the peculiar rich- 
ness and variety of the Poet's verbal modulation, the sub- 
tile and winding, yet severe and never-cloying music of his 
verse, which seems to voice the essential harmonies of 
intellectual and emotional beauty, are among those quali- 10 
ties of his workmanship which are the last to be consciously 
appreciated even by the most pronounced Shakespeareans. 
At least, I have found it so in my own experience ; and 
some of our ripest students of the Poet, those who have 
made a lifelong study of him, have told me that it was 15 
the same in theirs. So, too, the principles and philosophy 
of art, as involved in Shakespeare's creations, are mat- 
ter for the ripest and best-trained minds ; too deep and 
intricate perhaps for any but such as make a special study 
in pursuits of that nature. These points cannot be treated 20 
here, and have received such treatment as I could give 
them, in my work entitled Shakespeare' s Life, Art, and 
Characters, 

In conclusion, I beg to say, that for some years past I 
have felt a strong and growing desire to do what I could 25 
towards working Shakespeare into general and system- 
atic use as a text-book in the education of youth. It was 
in pursuance of that long-cherished wish, that I undertook 
the present work. If the work should prove in any degree 
useful in furthering that cause, I will deem my labors well 30 
taken and amply rewarded. For, in truth, it seems to me 
that we stay quite too much in the study of words, and quite 



62 HUDSON'S ESSAYS ' 

too little in that of things \ and that the reform now most 
needed in our educational modes is the giving much more 
time to the masters of our native language, which is to us 
naturally a medium of intellectual vision, and much less to 
the study of foreign languages, which, from the nature of the 
case, must needs be to us, for the most part, the object of 
such vision. 



HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE 
IN SCHOOL 

As I have long been in frequent receipt of letters asking 
for advice or suggestions as to the best way of using Shake- 
speare in class, I have concluded to write out and print 
some of my thoughts on that subject. On one or two pre- 
vious occasions, I have indeed moved the theme, but only, 5 
for the most part, incidentally, and in subordinate connection 
with other topics, never with anything like a round and full 
exposition of it. 

And in the first place I am to remark, that in such a mat- 
ter no one can make up or describe, in detail, a method of 10 
teaching for another : in many points every teacher must 
strike out his or her own method ; for a method that works 
very well in one person's hands may nevertheless fail entirely 
in another's.^ Some general reasons or principles of method, 
together with a few practical hints of detail, is about all that 15 
I can undertake to give ; this too rather with a view to set- 
ting teachers' own minds at work in devising ways, than to 
marking out any formal course of procedure. 

In the second place, here, as elsewhere, the method of 
teaching is to be shaped and suited to the particular pur- 20 
pose in hand ; on the general principle, of course, that the 
end is to point out and prescribe the means. So, if the 
purpose be to make the pupils in our public schools Shake - 
speareans in any proper sense of the term, I can mark out no 
practicable method for the case, because I hold the purpose 25 

63 



64 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

itself to be utterly impracticable ; one that cannot possibly 
be carried out, and ought not to be, if it could. I find 
divers people talking and writing as if our boys and girls 
were to make a knowledge of Shakespeare the chief busi- 
5 ness of their life, and were to gain their living thereby. 
These have a sort of cant phrase current among them, 
about " knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense "; and 
they are instructing us that, in order to this, we must study 
the English language historically, and acquire a technical 

10 mastery of Elizabethan idioms. 

Now, to know Shakespeare in an eminent sense, if it means 
anything, must mean, I take it, to become Shakespeareans, 
or become eminent in the knowledge of Shakespeare ; that 
is to say, we must have such a knowledge of Shakespeare 

15 as can be gained only by making a special and continuous, 
or at least very frequent, study of him through many long 
years. So the people in question seem intent upon some 
plan or programme of teaching whereby the pupils in our 
schools shall come out full-grown Shakespeareans ; this too 

20 when half a dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of the Poet's plays 
is all they can possibly find time for studying through. And 
to this end, they would have them study the Poet's language 
historically, and so draw out largely into his social, moral, 
and mental surroundings, and ransack the literature of his 

25 time ; therewithal they would have their Shakespeare Gram- 
mars and Shakespeare Lexicons, and all the apparatus for 
training the pupils in a sort of learned verbalism, and in 
analyzing and parsing the Poet's sentences. 

Now I know of but three persons in the whole United 

30 States who have any just claim to be called Shakespeareans, 
or who can be truly said to know Shakespeare in an eminent 
sense. Those are, of course, Mr. Grant White, Mr. Howard 



1 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 65 

Furness, and Mr. Joseph Crosby. Beyond this goodly trio, 
I cannot name a single person in the land who is able to go 
alone, or even to stand alone, in any question of textual 
criticism or textual correction. For that is what it is to 
be a Shakespearean. And these three have become Shake- 5 
speareans, not by the help of any labor-saving machinery, 
such as special grammars and lexicons, but by spending many 
years of close study and hard brain work in and around their 
author. Before reaching that point, they have not only had 
to study all through the Poet himself, and this a great many 10 
times, but also to make many excursions and sojournings in 
the popular, and even the erudite authorship of his period. 
And the work has been almost, if not altogether, a pure 
labor of love with them. They have pursued it with impas- 
sioned earnestness, as if they could find no rest for their 15 
souls without it. 

Well, and what do you suppose the result of all this has 
done or is doing for them in the way of making a living? 
Do you suppose they can begin to purchase their bread and 
butter, or even so much as the bread without the butter, with 20 
the proceeds of their great learning and accomplishments in 
that kind? No, not a bit of it ! For the necessaries of life, 
every man of them has to depend mostly, if not entirely, on 
other means. If they had nothing to feed upon but what 
their Shakespeare knowledge brings them, they would have 25 
mighty little use for their teeth. If you do not believe this, 
ask the men themselves : and if they tell you it is not so, 
then I will frankly own myself a naughty boy, and will do 
penance publicly for my naughtiness. For my own poor 
part, I know right well that I have no claim to be called a 30 
Shakespearean, albeit I may, perchance, have had some fool- 
ish aspirations that way. Nevertheless I will venture to say 



66 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

that Shakespeare work does more towards procuring a liveli- 
hood for me than for either of the gentlemen named. This 
is doubtless because I am far inferior to them in Shake- 
spearean acquirement and culture. Yet, if I had nothing but 
5 the returns of my labor in that kind to live upon, I should 
have to live a good deal more cheaply than I do. And there 
would probably be no difficulty in finding persons that were 
not born till some time after my study of Shakespeare began, 
who, notwithstanding, can now outbid me altogether in any 

io auction of bread-buying popularity. This, no doubt, is be- 
cause their natural gifts and fitness for the business are so su- 
perior to mine, that they might readily be extemporized into 
what no length of time and study could possibly educate me. 
In all this the three gentlemen aforesaid are, I presume, 

15 far from thinking they have anything to complain of, or from 
having any disposition to complain ; and I am certainly as 
far from this as they are. It is all in course, and all just 
right, except that I have a good deal better than I deserve. 
And both they and I know very well that nothing but a love 

20 of the thing can carry any one through such a work; that 
in the nature of things such pursuits have to be their own 
reward ; and that here, as elsewhere, " love 's not love when 
it is mingled with regards that stand aloof from th' entire 
point."* 

25 Such, then, is the course and process by which, and by 
which alone, men can come to know Shakespeare in any 
sense deserving to be called eminent. It is a process of 
close, continuous, lifelong study. And, in order to know 
the Poet in this eminent sense, one must know a good deal 

30 more of him than of anything else ; that is to say, the pur- 
suit must be something of a specialty with him ; unless his 
mind be by nature far more encyclopedic than most men's 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 67 

are. Then too, in the case of those who have reached this 
point, the process had its beginning in a deep and strong 
love of the subject : Shakespeare has been a passion with 
them, perhaps I should say the master passion of their life : 
this was both the initiative impulse that set them a-going, 5 
and also the sustaining force that kept them going, in the 
work. Now such a love can hardly be wooed into life or 
made to sprout by a technical, parsing, gerund-grinding 
course of study. + The proper genesis and growth of love 
are not apt to proceed in that way. A long and loving 10 
study may indeed produce, or go to seed in, a grammar or 
a lexicon ; but surely the grammar or the lexicon is not the 
thing to prompt or inaugurate the long and loving study. 
Or, if the study begin in that way, it will not be a study of 
the workmanship as poetry, but only, or chiefly, as the raw 15 
material of lingual science ; that is to say, as a subject for 
verbal dissection and surgery. 

If, then, any teacher would have his pupils go forth from 
school knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense, he must 
shape and order his methods accordingly. What those 20 
methods may be, or should be, I cannot say ; but I should 
think they must be quite in the high-pressure line, and I 
more than suspect they will prove abortive, after all. And 
here I cannot forbear to remark that some few of us are so 
stuck in old-fogyism, or so fossilized, as to hold that the 25 
main business of people in this world is to gain an honest 
living ; and that they ought to be educated with a con- 
stant eye to that purpose. These, to be sure, look very like 
self-evident propositions; axioms, or mere truisms, w r hich, 
nevertheless, our education seems determined to ignore 30 
entirely, and a due application of which would totally revo- 
lutionize our whole educational system. 



68 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Now knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense does not 
appear to be exactly the thing for gaining an honest living. 
All people but a few, a very few indeed, have, ought to 
have, must have, other things to do.. I suspect that one 
5 Shakespearean in about five millions is enough. And a vast 
majority are to get their living by handwork, not by head- 
work ; and even with those who live by headwork Shake- 
speare can very seldom be a leading interest. He can nowise 
be the substance or body of their mental food, but only, at 

io the most, as a grateful seasoning thereof. Thinking of his 
poetry may be a pleasant and helpful companion for them in 
their business, but cannot be the business itself. His divine 
voice may be a sweetening tone, yet can be but a single tone, 
and an undertone at that, in the chorus of a well-ordered 

15 life and a daily round of honorable toil. Of the students 
in our colleges not one in a thousand, of the pupils in our 
high schools not one in a hundred thousand, can think, or 
ought to think, of becoming Shakespeareans. But most of 
them, it may be hoped, can become men and women of right 

20 intellectual tastes and loves, and so be capable of a pure and 
elevating pleasure in the converse of books. Surely, then, 
in the little time that can be found for studying Shakespeare, 
the teaching should be shaped to the end, not of making 
the pupils Shakespeareans, but only of doing somewhat — 

25 it cannot be much — towards making them wiser, better, 
happier men and women. 

So, in reference to school study, what is the use of this 
cant about knowing Shakespeare in an eminent sense? Why 
talk of doing what no sane person can ever, for a moment, 

30 possibly think of attempting? The thing might well be 
passed by as one of the silliest cants that ever were canted, 
but that, as now often urged, it is of a very misleading and 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 69 

mischievous tendency ; like that other common folly of tell- 
ing all our boys that they may become President of the 
United States. This is the plain and simple truth of the 
matter, and as such I am for speaking it without any sort of 
mincing or disguise. In my vocabulary, indeed, on most 5 
occasions I choose that a spade be simply "a spade," and 
not "an instrument for removing earth." 

This brings me to the main point, to what may be called 
the heart of my message. Since anything worthy to be 
termed an eminent knowledge of Shakespeare cannot possi- 10 
bly be gained or given in school, and could not be, even if 
ten times as many hours were spent in the study as can be, 
or ought to be, so spent, the question comes next, What, then, 
can be done? And my answer, in the fewest words, is this : 
The most and the best that we can hope to do, is to plant 15 
in the pupils, and to nurse up as far as may be, a genuine 
taste and love for Shakespeare's poetry. The planting and 
nursing of this taste is purely a matter of culture, and not of 
acquirement : it is not properly giving the pupils knowledge ; 
it is but opening the road, and starting them on the way to 20 
knowledge. And such a taste, once well set in the mind, 
will be, or at least stand a good chance of being, an abid- 
ing principle, a prolific germ of wholesome and improving 
study : moreover it will naturally proceed till, in time, it 
comes to act as a strong elective instinct, causing the mind 25 
to gravitate towards what is good, and to recoil from what is 
bad : it may end in bringing, say, one in two millions to 
" know Shakespeare in an eminent sense " ; but it can hardly 
fail to be a precious and fruitful gain to many, perhaps to 
most, possibly to all. , 30 

This I believe to be a thoroughly practicable aim. And 
as the aim itself is practicable, so there are practicable ways 



70 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

for attaining it or working towards it. What these ways are 
or may be, I can best set forth by tracing, as literally and 
distinctly as I know how, my own course of procedure in 
teaching. 
5 In the first place, I never have had, never will have, any 
recitations whatever ; but only what I call, simply, exercises, 
the pupils reading the author under my direction, correction, 
and explanation \ the teacher and the taught thus commun- 
ing together in the author's pages for the time being." 1 " Nor 

10 do I ever require, though I commonly advise, that the 
matter to be read in class be read over by the pupils in pri- 
vate before coming to the exercise. Such preparation is 
indeed well, but not necessary. I am very well satisfied by 
having the pupils live, breathe, think, feel with the author 

15 while his words are on their lips and in their ears. As I 
wish to have them simply growing, or getting the food of 
growth, I do not care to have them making any conscious 
acquirement at all; my ainuthus always being to produce 
the utmost possible amount of silent effect. And I much 

20 prefer to have the classes rather small, never including more 
than twenty pupils ; even a somewhat smaller number is still 
better. Then, in Shakespeare, I always have the pupils read 
dramatically right round and round the class, myself calling 
the parts. When a speech is read, if the occasion seems to 

25 call for it, I make comments, ask questions, or have the 
pupils ask them, so as to be sure that they understand fairly 
what they are reading. That done, I call the next speech ; 
and so the reading and the talking proceed till the class time 
is up. 

30 In the second place, as to the nature and scope of these 
exercises, or the parts, elements, particulars they consist of. — 
In Shakespeare, the exercise is a mixed one of reading, 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 71 

language, and character. And I make a good deal of hav- 
ing the Poet's lines read properly ; this too both for the util- 
ity of it and as a choice and refined accomplishment, and 
also because such a reading of them greatly enhances the 
pleasure of the exercise both to the readers themselves and 5 
to the hearers. 4 " Here, of course, such points come in as the 
right pronunciation of words, the right place and degree of 
emphasis, the right pauses and divisions of sense, the right 
tones and inflections of voice. But the particulars that make 
up good reading are too well known to need dwelling upon. 10 
Suffice it to say, that in this part of the exercise my whole 
care is to have the pupils understand what they are read- 
ing, and to pronounce it so that an intelligent listener may 
understand it : that done, I rest content. But I tolerate 
nothing theatrical or declamatory or oratorical or put on for 15 
effect in the style of reading, and insist on a clean, clear, 
simple, quiet voicing of the sense and meaning; no strut, 
no swell, but all plain and pure ; that being my notion of 
tasteful reading. 

Touching this point, I will but add that Shakspeare is 20 
both the easiest and also the hardest of all authors to read 
properly, — the easiest because he is the most natural, and 
the hardest for the same reason ; and for both these reasons 
together he is the best of all authors for training people in 
the art of reading : for an art it is, and a very high one too, 25 
insomuch that pure and perfect reading is one of the rarest 
things in the world, as it is also one of the delightfullest. 
The best description of what it is that now occurs to me is^ 
in Guy Mannering, chapter 29th,- wherg Julia Mannering 
writes to her friend how, of an evening, her father is wont 30 
to sweeten their home and its fireside by the choice matter 
and the tasteful ^manner of his reading. And so my happy 



72 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

life — for it is a happy one — has little of better happiness 
in it than hearing my own beloved pupils read Shakespeare. 
As to the language part of the exercise, this is chiefly 
concerned with the meaning and force of the Poet's words, 
5 but also enters more or less into sundry points of grammar, 
word growth, prosody, and rhetoric, making the whole as 
little technical as possible. And I use, or aim to use, all 
this for the one sole purpose of getting the pupils to under- 
stand what is immediately before them ; not looking at all 

io to any lingual or philological purposes lying beyond the 
matter directly in hand. And here I take the utmost care 
not to push the part of verbal comment and explanation so 
long or so far as to become dull and tedious to the pupils. 
For as I wish them to study Shakespeare, simply that they 

15 may learn to understand and to love his poetry itself, so I 
must and will have them take pleasure in the process ; and 
people are not apt to fall or to grow in love with things that 
bore them. I would much rather they should not fully 
understand his thought, or not take in the full sense of his 

20 lines, than that they should feel anything of weariness or 
disgust in the study ; for the defect of present comprehen- 
sion can easily be repaired in the future, but not so the 
disgust. If they really love the poetry, and find it pleasant 
to their souls, I '11 risk the rest. 

25 In truth, average pupils do not need nearly so much of 
catechising and explaining as many teachers are apt to sup- 
pose. I have known divers cases where this process was 
carried to a very inordinate and hurtful excess, the matter 
being all chopped into a fine mince-meat of items ; questions 

30 and topics being multiplied to the last degree of minute- 
ness and tenuity. Often well-nigh a hundred questions are 
pressed where there ought not to be more than one or two ; 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 73 

the aim being, apparently, to force an exhaustive gram- 
matical study of the matter. And exhaustive of the pupil's 
interest and patience it may well prove to be. This is not 
studying Shakespeare, but merely using him as an occasion 
for studying something else. Surely, surely, such a course 5 
" is not, nor it cannot come to, good " : it is just the way 
to make pupils loathe the study as an intolerable bore, and 
wish the Poet had never been born. The thing to be aimed 
at before all others is, to draw and hold the pupil's mind in 
immediate contact with the poetry ; and such a multitude 10 
of mincing questions and comments is just a thick wedge 
of tiresome obstruction and separation driven in between 
the two. In my own teaching, my greatest fear commonly 
is, lest I may strangle and squelch the proper virtue and 
efficacy of the Poet's lines with my own incontinent cate- 15 
chetical and exegetical babble. 

Next, for the character part of the exercise. And here 
I have to say, at the start, that I cannot think it a good use 
of time to put pupils to the study of Shakespeare at all, 
until they have got strength and ripeness of mind enough 20 
to enter, at least in some fair measure, into the transpira- 
tions of character in his persons. For this is indeed the 
Shakespeare of Shakespeare. And the process is as far as 
you can think from being a mere formal or mechanical or 
routine handling of words and phrases and figures of speech : 25 
it is nothing less than to hear and to see the hearts and 
souls of the persons in what they say and do ; to feel, as 
it were, the very pulse throbs of their inner life. Herein 
it is that Shakespeare's unapproached and unapproachable 
mastery of human nature lies. Nor can I bear to have his 30 
poetry studied merely as a curious thing standing outside 
of and apart from the common life of man, but as drawing 



74 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

directly into the living current of human interests, feelings, 
duties, needs, occasions. So I like to be often running the 
Poet's thoughts, and carrying the pupils with them, right 
out and home to the business and bosom of humanity about 

5 them; into the follies, vices, and virtues, the meannesses 
and nobilities, the loves, joys, sorrows, and shames, the 
lapses and grandeurs, the disciplines, disasters, devotions, 
and divinities, of men and women as they really are in the 
world. For so the right use of his poetry is, to subserve 

10 the ends of life, not of talk. And if this part be rightly 
done, pupils will soon learn that " our gentle Shakespeare " 
is not a prodigious enchanter playing with sublime or gro- 
tesque imaginations for their amusement, but a friend and 
brother, all alive with the same heart that is in them ; and 

15 who, while he is but little less than an angel, is also at the 
same time but little more than themselves ; so that, begin- 
ning where his feet are, they can gradually rise, and keep 
rising, till they come to be at home where his great, deep, 
mighty intellect is. 

20 Such, substantially, and in some detail, is the course I 
have uniformly pursued in my Shakespeare classes. I have 
never cared to have my pupils make any show in analyzing 
and parsing the Poet's language, but I have cared much, 
very much, to have them understand and enjoy his poetry. 

25 Accordingly I have never touched the former at all, except 
so far as was clearly needful in order to secure the latter. 
And as the poetry was made for the purpose of being 
enjoyed, so, when I have seen the pupils enjoying it, this 
has been to me sufficient proof that they rightly under- 

30 stood it. True, I have never had, nor have I ever wanted, 
any available .but cheap percentages of proficiency to set 
off my work : perhaps my pupils have seldom had any idea 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 75 

of what they were getting from the study. Very well ; then 
it has at least not fostered conceit in them : so I wished 
to have it, so was glad to have it : the results I aimed at 
were far off in the future ; nor have I had any fear of those 
results failing to emerge in due time. In fact, I cleave 5 
rather fondly to the hope of being remembered by my 
pupils with some affection after I shall be no more ; and 
I know right well that the best fruits of the best mental 
planting have and must have a pretty long interval between 
the seedtime and the harvest. + 10 

Once, indeed, and it was my very first attempt, having 
a class of highly intelligent young ladies, I undertook to 
put them through a pretty severe drill in prosody : after 
enduring it awhile they remonstrated with me, giving me 
to understand that they wanted the light and pleasure 15 
properly belonging to the study, and not the tediousness 
that pedantry or mere technical learning could force into 
it. They were right ; and herein I probably learned more 
from them than they did from me. And so teaching of 
Shakespeare has been just the happiest occupation of my 20 
life : the wholesomest and most tonic too ; disposing me 
more than any other to severe and earnest thought : no 
drudgery in it, no dullness about it ; but " as full of spirit 
as the month of May," and joyous as Wordsworth's lark 
hiding himself in the light of morning, and 25 

With a soul as strong as a mountain river 
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver. 

But now certain wise ones are telling us that this is all 
wrong ; that teaching Shakespeare in this way is making, 
or tending to make, the study " an entertainment," and 30 
so not the " noble study " that it ought to be ; meaning, I 
suppose, by noble study , such a study as would bring the 



76 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

pupils to know Shakespeare in the eminent sense remarked 
upon before. What is this but to proceed in the work just 
as if the pupils were to become Shakespeareans ; that is, 
specialists in that particular line? 
5 Thus they would import into this study the same false 
and vicious mode that has come to be used with the classics 
in our colleges. This mode is, to keep pegging away con- 
tinually at points of grammar and etymology, so as to leave 
no time or thought for the sense and meaning of what is 

10 read. Thus the classical author is used merely or mainly 
for the purpose of teaching the grammar, not the grammar 
for the purpose of understanding the author. For the prac- 
tical upshot of such a course is, to have the student learn 
what modern linguists and grammarians have compiled, not 

15 what the old Greeks and Romans thought. This hind-first or 
hindmost-foremost process has grown to be a dreadful nui- 
sance in our practice, making the study of Greek and Latin 
inexpressibly lifeless and wearisome ; and utterly fruitless 
withal as regards real growth of mind and culture of taste. 

20 Some years ago, I had a talk on this subject with our 
late venerable patriarch of American letters, whose only 
grandson had then recently graduated from college. He 
told me he had gathered from the young man to what a 
wasteful and vicious extreme the thing was carried ; and he 

25 spoke in terms of severe censure and reprobation of the 
custom. And so I have heard how a very learned professor 
one day spent the time of a whole recitation in talking about 
a comma that had been inserted in a Greek text ; telling the 
class who inserted it, and when and why he did so ; also 

30 who had since accepted it, and who had since rejected it, 
and when and why ; also what effect the insertion had, and 
what the omission, on the sense of the passage. Now, if 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 77 

the students had all been predestined or predetermined 
specialists in Greek, this might possibly have been the right 
way ; but, as they were not so predestined or predeter- 
mined, the way was most certainly wrong, and a worse one 
could hardly have been taken. For the right course of study 5 
for those who are to be specialists in this or that pursuit is 
one thing ; the right course for those who cannot be, and 
have no thought of being, specialists is a very different 
thing ; and to transfer the former course to the latter class, 
is a most preposterous blunder, yes, and a most mischievous 10 
one too. 

I have lately been given to understand that some of our 
best classical teachers have become sensible of this great 
error, and have set to work to correct it in practice. I under- 
stand also that noble old Harvard, wise in this, as in many 15 
other things, is leading the return to the older and better 
way. I hope most devoutly that it is so ; for the proper effect 
of the modern way can hardly be any other than to atten- 
uate and chill and dwarf the student's better faculties. The 
thing, to be sure, has been done in the name of thoroughness, 20 
but I believe it has proved thorough to no end but that of 
unsinewing the mind, and drying the sap out of it. 

But now the selfsame false mode that has thus run itself 
into the ground in classical study must, it seems, be used 
in the study of English authors. For so the wise ones 25 
aforesaid, those who are for having everybody know Shake- 
speare in an eminent sense, would, apparently, have the 
study ennobled by continual diversions into the science 
of language, exercising the pupil's logical faculty, or rather 
his memory, with points of etymology, grammar, historical 30 
usage, etc. ; points that are, or may be made to appear, 
scientifically demonstrable. Thus the thing they seem to 



78 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

have in view is about the same that certain positivist 
thinkers mean when they would persuade us that no knowl- 
edge is really worth having but what stands on a basis of 
scientific demonstration, so that we not only may be certain 
5 of its truth, but cannot possibly be otherwise. 

So I have somewhere read of a certain mathematician 
who, on reading Paradise Lost, made this profound criti- 
cism, that " it was a very pretty piece of work, but he did 
not see that it proved anything." But, if he had studied 

io it in the modern way of studying poetry, he would have 
found that divers things might be proved from it ; as, for 
instance, that a metaphor and a simile are at bottom one 
and the same thing, differing only in form, and that the 
author very seldom, if ever, makes use of the word its. 

15 And so the singing of a bird does not prove anything scien- 
tifically ; and your best way of getting scientific knowledge 
about the little creature is by dissecting him, so as to find 
out where the music comes from, and how it is made. And 
so, again, what good can the flowers growing on your 

20 mother's grave do you, unless you use them as things to 
"peep and botanize" about, like the " philosopher " in 
one of Wordsworth's poems? 

The study of Shakespeare an entertainment? Yes, to be 
sure, precisely that, if you please to call it so ; a pastime, 

25 a recreation, a delight. This is just what, in my notion of 
things, such a study ought to be. Why, what else should 
it be? It is just what I have always tried my utmost, and 
I trust I may say with some little success, to make the 
study. Shakespeare's poetry, has it not a right to be to us 

30 a perennial spring of sweetness and refreshment, a thing 

Round which, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
Our pastime and our happiness may grow ? 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 79 

And so my supreme desire has been that the time spent in 
the study should be, to the pupils, brimful of quiet gladness 
and pleasantness ; and in so far as at any time it has not 
been so, just so far I have regarded my work as a sorry 
failure, and have determined to try and do better next 5 
time. What the dickens — I beg everybody's pardon — 
what can be the proper use of studying Shakespeare's poetry 
without enjoyment? Or do you suppose that any one can 
really delight in his poetry, without reaping therefrom the 
highest and purest benefit? The delectation is itself the 10 
appropriate earnest and proof that the student is drinking 
in — without knowing it indeed, and all the better for that 
— just the truest, deepest, finest culture that any poetry 
can give. What touches the mind's heart is apt to cause 
pleasure ; what merely grubs in its outskirts and suburbs 15 
is apt to be tedious and dull. Assuredly, therefore, if a 
teacher finds that his or her pupils, or any of them, cannot 
be wooed and won to take pleasure in the study of Shake- 
speare, then either the teacher should forthwith go to teach- 
ing something else, or the pupils should be put to some 20 
other study. 

What wise and wonderful ideas our progressive oblivion 
of the past is putting into people's heads ! Why, it has 
been, from time immemorial, a settled axiom, that the proper 
aim of poetry is to please; of the highest poetry, to make 25 
wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the True and the Good 
with delight and joy. This is the very constituent of the 
poet's art ; that without which it has no adequate reason 
for being. To clothe the austere forms of truth and wisdom 
with heart-taking, beauty and sweetness, is its life and law. 30 
But then it is only when poetry is read as poetry that it is 
bound to please. When or so far as it is studied only as 



80 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

grammar or logic, it has a perfect right to be unpleasant. 
Of course I hold that poetry, especially Shakespeare's, ought 
to be read as poetry ; and when it is not read with pleasure, 
the right grace and profit of the reading are missed. For 
5 the proper instructiveness of poetry is essentially dependent 
on its pleasantness ; whereas in other forms of writing this 
order is or may be reversed. The sense or the conscience 
of what is morally good and right should indeed have a hand, 
and a prerogative hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so, 

10 to be sure, it must be, else the pleasures will needs be tran- 
sient, and even the seedtime of future pains. So right- 
minded people ought to desire, and do desire, to find 
pleasure in what is right and good ; the highest pleasure in 
what is rightest and best : nevertheless the pleasure of the 

15 thing is what puts its healing, purifying, regenerating virtue 
into action ; and to converse with what is in itself beautiful 
and good without tasting any pleasantness in it, is or may 
be a positive harm. 

But, indeed, our. education has totally lost the idea of 

20 culture, and consequently has thrown aside the proper 
methods of it : it makes no account of anything but acquire- 
ments. And the reason seems to be somewhat as follows : 
— The process of culture is silent and unconscious, because 
it works deep in the mind ; the process of acquirement is 

25 conscious and loud, because its work is all on the mind's 
surface. Moreover the former is exceedingly slow, insomuch 
as to yield from day to day no audible results, and so cannot 
be made available for effect in recitation : the latter is rapid, 
yielding recitable results from hour to hour ; the effect comes 

30 quickly, is quickly told in recitation, and makes a splendid 
appearance, thus tickling the vanity of pupils mightily, as 
also of their loving (self -loving?) parents. 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 8l 

But then, on the other hand, the culture that you have 
once got you thenceforward keep, and can nowise part with 
or lose it ; slow in coming, it comes to stay with you, and 
to be an indelible part of you : whereas your acquirement 
is, for the most part, quickly got, and as quickly lost ; for, 5 
indeed, it makes no part of the mind, but merely hangs or 
sticks on its outside. So, here, the pupil just crams in study, 
disgorges in recitation, and then forgets it all, to go through 
another like round of cramming, disgorging, and forgetting. 
Thus the pulse of your acquirement is easily counted, and 10 
foots up superbly from day to day ; but nobody can count 
the pulse of your culture, for it has none, at least none that 
is or can be perceived. In other words, the course of cul- 
ture is dimly marked by years ; that of acquirement is plainly 
marked by hours. 15 

And so no one can parse, or cares to parse, the delight 
he has in Shakespeare, for the parsing just kills the delight : 
the culture one gets from studying his poetry as poetry, he 
can nowise recite, for it is not a recitable thing, and he can 
tell you nothing about it : he can only say he loves the 20 
poetry, and that talking with it somehow recreates and 
refreshes him. But any one can easily learn to parse the 
Poet's words : what he gets from studying his poetry as 
grammar, or logic, or rhetoric, or prosody, this he can recite, 
can talk glibly about it; but it stirs no love in him, has no 25 
recreation or refreshment for him at all; none, that is, 
unless by touching his vanity, and putting him in love with 
himself for the pretty show he makes in recitation. There 
is, to be sure, a way of handling the study of Shakespeare, 
whereby the pupils may be led to take pleasure not so much 30 
in his poetry itself as in their own supposed knowledge and 
appreciation of it. That way, however, I just do not believe 



82 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

in at all ; no ! not even though it be the right way for 
bringing pupils to know Shakespeare in the eminent sense. 
I have myself learned him, if I may claim to know him at all, 
in a very uneminent sense, and have for more than forty 
5 years been drawn onwards in the study purely by the natural 
pleasantness of his poetry ; and so I am content to have 
others do. Thus, you see, it has never been with me 
" a noble study " at all. 

Well now, our education is continually saying, in effect if 

io not in words, "What is the use of pursuing such studies, or 
pursuing them in such a way, as can produce no available 
results, nothing to show, from day to day? Put away your 
slow thing, whose course is but faintly marked even by years, 
and give us the spry thing, that marks its course brilliantly 

15 by days, perhaps by hours. Let the clock of our progress 
tick loudly, that we may always know just where it is, and 
just where we are. Except we can count the pulse of your 
process, we will not believe there is any life or virtue in it. 
None of your silences- for us, if you please ! " 

20 A few words now on another, yet nearly connected, topic, 
and I have done. — I have long thought, and the thought 
has kept strengthening with me from year to year, that our 
educational work proceeds altogether too much by recita- 
tions. Our school routine is now a steady stream of these, 

25 so that teachers have no time for anything else ; the pupils 
being thus held in a continual process of alternate crammings 
and disgorgings. As part and parcel of this recitation sys- 
tem, we must have frequent examinations and exhibitions, 
for a more emphatic marking of our progress. The thing 

30 has grown to the height of a monstrous abuse, and is threat- 
ening most serious consequences. It is a huge perpetual 
motion of forcing and high pressure \ no possible pains 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 83 

being spared to keep the pupils intensely conscious of their 
proficiency, or of their deficiency, as the case may be : 
motives of pride, vanity, shame, ambition, rivalry, emula- 
tion, are constantly appealed to and stimulated, and the 
nervous system kept boiling hot with them. Thus, to make 5 
the love of knowledge sprout soon enough, and grow fast 
and strong enough for our ideas, we are all the while dosing 
and provoking it with a sort of mental and moral canthar- 
ides. Surely, the old arguments of the rod and the ferule, 
as persuasives to diligence, were far wholesomer, yes, and 10 
far kinder too, than this constant application of intellectual 
drugs and high wines : the former only made the skin tingle 
and smart a little while, and that was the end of it ; whereas 
the latter plants its pains within the very house of life, and 
leaves them rankling and festering there. + So our way is, to 15 
spare the skin and kill the heart. 

And, if the thing is not spoiling the boys, it is at all 
events killing the girls. + For, as a general rule, girls are, I 
take it, more sensitive and excitable naturally than boys, 
and therefore more liable to have their brain and nervous 20 
system fatally wronged and diseased by this dreadful, this 
cruel, fomenting with unnatural stimulants and provocatives. 
To be sure, it makes them preternaturally bright and inter- 
esting for a while, and we think the process is working glori- 
ously : but this is all because the dear creatures have come 25 
to blossom at a time when as yet the leaves should not 
have put forth ; and so, when the proper time arrives for 
them to be in the full bloom of womanhood, leaf, blossom, 
and all are gone, leaving them faded and withered and joy- 
less; and chronic ill health, premature old age, untimely 30 
death, are their lot and portion. Of course, the thing can- 
not fail to have the effect of devitalizing and demoralizing 



84 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

and dwarfing the mind itself. The bright glow in its cheeks 
is but the hectic flush of a consumptive state. 

This is no fancy picture, no dream of speculative imagi- 
nation : it is only too true in matter of fact ; as any one 
5 may see, or rather as no one can choose but see, who uses 
his eyes upon what is going on about us. Why, Massachusetts 
cannot now build asylums fast enough for her multiplying 
insane ; and, if things keep on as they are now going, the 
chances are that the whole State will in no very long time 

10 come to be almost one continuous hospital of lunatics. All 
this proceeds naturally and in course from our restless and 
reckless insistence on forcing what is, after all, but a showy, 
barren, conceited intellectualism. But, indeed, the conse- 
quences of this thing are, some of them, too appalling to be 

15 so much as hinted here : I can but speak the word mother- 
hood, — a word even more laden with tenderness and sacred 
meaning than womanhood, 

I have talked with a good many of our best teachers on 
this subject, never with any one who did not express a full 

20 concurrence with me in the opinion, that the recitation 
business is shockingly and ruinously overworked in our 
teaching. But they say they can do nothing, or at the best 
very little, to help it ; the public will have it so ; the thing 
has come to be a deep-seated chronic disease in our educa- 

25 tional system : this disease has got to run its course and 
work itself through \ it is to be hoped that, when matters 
are at the worst, they will take a turn, and begin to mend : 
at all events, time alone can work out a redress of the wrong. 
In all this they are perfectly right; so that the blame of the 

30 thing nowise rests with them. Neither does the blame rest 
ultimately with superintendents, supervisors, or committee- 
men, where Gail Hamilton, in her recent book, places it : 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 85 

the trouble lies further back, in the state of the public mind 
itself, which has for a long time been industriously, inces- 
santly, systematically, perverted, corrupted, depraved, by 
plausible but shallow innovators and quacks. 

The real truth is, things have come to that pass with us, 5 
that parents will not believe there is or can be any real 
growth of mind in their children, unless they can see them 
growing from day to day ; whereas a growing that can be 
so seen is of course just no growing at all, but only a bloat- 
ing ; which I believe I have said somewhere before. In this to 
wretched mispersuasion, they use all possible means to foster 
in their children a morbid habit of conscious acquirement ; 
and a system of recitations, examinations, and exhibitions 
to keep the process hot and steaming, is the thing to do it. 

But I more than suspect the primitive root of the difficulty 15 
lies deeper still, and is just here : That, having grown into a 
secret disrelish of the old religion of our fathers, as being too 
objective in its nature, and too firm and solid in its objec- 
tiveness, to suit our taste, we have turned to an idolatry of 
intellect and knowledge ; have no faith in anything, no love 20 
for anything, but what we spin, or seem to spin, out of our 
own minds. So in the idolatry of intellect, as in other idol- 
atries, the marble statue with which it begins naturally comes, 
in process of time, to be put aside as too weighty, too ex- 
pensive, and too still, and to be replaced with a hollow and 25 
worthless image all made up of paper and paint. And the 
cheaper and falser the idol is, the more eagerly do the 
devotees cut and scourge themselves in the worship of it. 
Hence the prating and pretentious intellectualism which we 
pursue with such suicidal eagerness. 30 

I must add, that of the same family with the cant spoken 
of before is that other canting phrase now so rife among us 



86 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

about " the higher education." The lower education, yes, 
the lower , is what we want ; and if this be duly cared for, 
the higher may be safely left to take care of itself. The 
latter will then come, and so it ought to come, of its own 

5 accord, just as fast and as far as the former finds or develops 
the individual aptitude for it ; and the attempting to give it 
regardless of such aptitude can only do what it is now doing, 
namely, spoil a great many people for all useful handwork, 
without fitting them for any sort of headwork. 

10 Of course there are some studies which may, perhaps must, 
proceed more or less by recitation. But, as a perpetual show 
of mind in the young is and can be nothing but a perpetual 
sham, so I am and long have been perfectly satisfied that at 
least three fourths of our recitations ought to be abandoned 

15 with all practicable speed, and be replaced by the better 
methods of our fathers, — methods that hold fast to the old 
law of what Dr. William B. Carpenter terms " unconscious 
cerebration," which is indeed the irrepealable law of all true 
mental growth and all right intellectual health. Nay, more ; 

20 the best results of the best thinking in the best and ripest 
heads come under the operation of the selfsame law, — just 
that, and no other. 

Assuredly, therefore, the need now most urgently pressing 
upon us is, to have vastly more of growth, and vastly less of 

25 manufacture, in our education ; or, in other words, that the 
school be altogether more a garden, and altogether less a 
mill. And a garden, especially with the rich multitudinous 
flora of Shakespeare blooming and breathing in it, can it be, 
ought it to be, other than a pleasant and happy place? 

30 The child whose love is here at least doth reap 

One precious gain, that he forgets himself. 



PREFACE TO THE HARVARD 
EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE 

The most obvious peculiarity of this edition is, that it 
has two sets of notes ; one mainly devoted to explain- 
ing the text, and printed at the foot of the page ; the other 
mostly occupied with matters of textual comment and criti- 
cism, and printed at the end of each play. 4 " Of course the 5 
purpose of this double annotation is, to suit the work, as far 
as practicable, to the uses both of the general reader and of 
the special student. Now, whatever of explanation general 
readers may need, they naturally prefer to have it directly 
before them ; and in at least nine cases out of ten they will 10 
pass over an obscure word or phrase or allusion without un- 
derstanding it, rather than stay to look up the explanation 
either in another volume or in another part of the same 
volume. Often, too, in case the explanation be not directly 
at hand, they will go elsewhere in quest of it, and then find, 15 
after all, that the editor has left the matter unexplained; so 
that the search will be to no purpose : whereas, with the plan 
of footnotes, they will commonly see at once how the matter 
stands, and what they have to expect, and so will be spared 
the labor and vexation of a fruitless quest. 20 

It scarce need be said that with special students the case 
is very different.* In studying such an author as Shake- 
speare, these naturally expect to light upon many things for 
the full discussion or elucidation of which they will have to 

87 



88 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

go beyond the page before them ; though I believe even 
these like to have the matter within convenient reach and 
easy reference. At all events, they are, or well may be, 
much less apt to get so intent on the author's thought, and 

5 so drawn onwards by the interest of the work, but that they 
can readily pause, and turn elsewhere, to study out such 
points as may call, or seem to call, for particular investiga- 
tion. In fact, general readers, for the most part, pay little 
or no attention to the language of what they are reading, 

io and seldom if ever interrogate, or even think of, the words, 
save when the interest of the matter is choked or checked 
by some strangeness or obscurity of expression ; whereas 
special students commonly are or should be carrying on a 
silent process of verbal interrogation, even when the matter 

15 is their chief concern : and as these are more sharp-sighted 
and more on the lookout for verbal difficulties than the 
former, so they are less impatient of the pauses required 
for out-of-the-way explanation. 

This edition has been undertaken, and the plan of it 

20 shaped, with a special view to meeting what is believed to 
be a general want, and what has indeed been repeatedly 
urged as such within the last few years."*" It has been said, 
and, I think, justly said, that a need is widely felt of an 
edition of Shakespeare, with such and so much of explana- 

25 tory comment as may suffice for the state of those unlearned 
but sane-thoughted and earnest readers who have, or wish to 
have, their tastes raised and set to a higher and heartier kind 
of mental feeding than the literary smoke and chaff of the 
time. I have known many bright and upward-looking 

30 minds, — minds honestly craving to drink from the higher 
and purer springs of intellectual power and beauty, — who 
were frank to own that it was a sin and a shame not to love 



THE HARVARIJ, % hak lSPEARE 89 

Shakespeare, but who could haicnyj if at all, make that love 
come free and natural to them. 

To be plying such minds with arguments of duty, or with 
thoughts of the good to be gained by standing through un- 
pleasant taskwork, seems to me a rather ungracious and 5 
impotent business. For it has long been a settled axiom 
that the proper force of poetry is to please ; of the highest 
poetry, to make wisdom and virtue pleasant, to crown the 
True and the Good with delight and joy. + This is the very 
constituent of the poet's art ; that without which it has no 10 
adequate reason for being. To clothe the austere forms of 
truth and wisdom with heart- taking beauty and sweetness, is 
its life and law. Poetry, then, ought of course to be read as 
poetry ; and when not read with pleasure, the right grace and 
profit of the reading are missed. For the proper instructive- 15 
ness of poetry is essentially dependent on its pleasantness ; 
whereas in other forms of writing this order is or may be 
reversed. The sense or the conscience of what is morally 
good and right should indeed have a hand, and a prerogative 
hand, in shaping our pleasures ; and so indeed it must be, 20 
else the pleasures will needs be transient, and even the seed- 
time of future pains. So right-minded people ought to 
desire, and do desire, to find pleasure in what is right and 
good ; the highest pleasure in what is rightest and best : 
nevertheless the pleasure of the thing is what puts its healing, 25 
purifying, regenerating virtue into act ; and to converse with 
what is in itself beautiful and good without tasting any pleas- 
antness in it, is or may be a positive harm. 

How, then, in reference to Shakespeare, is the case of 
common readers .to be met? As before remarked, to urge 30 
reasons of duty is quite from the purpose : reading Shake- 
speare as duty and without pleasure is of no use, save as it 



9 Hl:>sON'b S i E SSAYS 

may lift and draw them into a sense of his pleasantness. 
The question is, therefore, how to make him pleasant and 
attractive to them ; how fco put him before them, so that his 
spirit may have a fair chance to breathe into them, and 
5 quicken their congenial susceptibilities ; for, surely, his soul 
and theirs are essentially attuned to the same music. Doubt- 
less a full sense of his pleasantness is not to be extemporized : 
with most of us, nay, with the best of us, this is and must be 
a matter of growth : none but Shakespeare himself can edu- 

io cate us into a love of Shakespeare ; and such education, 
indeed all education, is a work of time. But I must insist 
upon it, that his works can and should be so edited, that 
average readers may find enough of pleasantness in them 
from the first to hold them to the perusal : and when they 

1 5 have been so held long enough for the workmanship to steal 
its virtue and sweetness into them, then they will be naturally 
and freely carried onwards to the condition where " love is 
an unerring light, and joy its own security." 

These remarks, I believe, indicate, as well as I know how 

20 to do, my idea — I can hardly say, I dare not say, my ideal — 
of what a popular edition of Shakespeare ought to be. + The 
editorial parts should, as far as possible, be so cast and tem- 
pered and ordered as to make the Poet's pages pleasant and 
attractive to common minds. Generally to such minds, and 

25 often even to uncommon minds, Shakespeare's world may 
well seem at first a strange world, — strange not only for the 
spiritualized realism of it, but because it is so much more 
deeply and truly natural than the book world to which they 
have been accustomed. The strangeness of the place, to- 

30 gether with the difficulty they find in clearly seeing the real 
forms and relations of the objects before them, is apt to ren- 
der the place unattractive, if not positively repulsive, to them. 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 91 

The place is so emphatically the native home of both the soul 
and the senses, that they feel lost in it; and this because 
they have so long traveled in literary regions where the soul 
and the senses have been trained into an estrangement from 
their proper home. It is like coming back to realities after 5 
having strayed among shadows till the shadows have come to 
seem realities. 

Not seldom the very naturalness of Shakespeare's world 
frightens unaccustomed readers : they find, or feel, so to 
speak, a kind of estranged familiarity about it, as of a place 10 
4 they have once known, but have lost the memory of ; so that 
: seems to them a land peopled with the ghosts of what had 
long ago been to them real living things. Thus the effect, for 
some time, is rather to scare and chill their interest than to 
kindle and heighten it. And the Poet is continually popping 15 
his thoughts upon them so pointedly, so vividly, so directly, 
so unceremoniously, that their sensibilities are startled, and 
would fain shrink back within the shell of custom ; so different 
is it from the pulpy, pointless, euphemistic ronndaboutness 
and volubility which they have been used to hearing from 20 
the pulpit, the press, the vulgar oratory, and the popular 
authorship of the day. Therewithal, the Poet often springs 
upon them such abrupt and searching revelations of their 
inner selves, so stings them with his truth, so wounds them 
with his healing, and causes such an undreamed-of birth of 25 
thoughts and feelings within them, that they stare about 
them with a certain dread and shudder, and " tremble like 
a guilty thing surprised," as in the presence of a magician 
that has stolen their inmost secrets from them, and is show- 
ing them up to the world. 4 " 30 

But this is not all. Besides the unfamiliarity of Shake- 
speare's matter, so many and so great lingual changes have 



92 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

taken place since his time, and, still more, his manner both 
of thought and expression is so intensely idiomatic, his diction 
so suggestive and overcharged with meaning, his imagery so 
strong and bold, his sense so subtle and delicate, his mod- 

5 ulation so various and of such solid and piercing sweetness, 
that common readers naturally have no little difficulty in 
coming to an easy and familiar converse with him. On some 
of these points, an editor can give little or no positive help : 
he can at the best but remove or lessen hindrances, and per- 

10 haps throw in now and then a kindling word or breath. But, 
on others of them, it lies within an editor's province to ren- 
der all the positive aid that common readers need for mak- 
ing them intelligently and even delightedly at home with 
the Poet. 

15 Of course this is to be mostly done by furnishing such and 
so much of comment and citation as may be required for 
setting the Poet's meaning out clear and free, and by trans- 
lating strange or unfamiliar words, phrases, and modes of 
speech into, the plain, current language of the day. And 

20 here it is of the first importance that an editor have the mind, 
or the art, not only to see things plainly, but to say a plain 
thing in a plain way ; or, in the happy phrase of old Roger 
Ascham, to " think as wise men do, and speak as common 
people do." 4 " And the secret of right editing is, to help aver- 

25 age readers over the author's difficulties with as little sense 
as possible of being helped ; to lead them up his heights and 
through his depths with as little sense as possible of being led. 
To do this, the editor must have such a kind and measure of 
learning in the field of his labor as can come only by many 

30 years of careful study and thought ; and he must keep the 
details and processes of his learning out of sight, putting forth 
only the last and highest results, the blossom and fragrance, 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 93 

of his learnedness : and the editor who does not know too 
much in his subject to be showing his knowledge is green 
and crude, and so far unfitted for his task. Generally speak- 
ing, it is doubtless better to withhold a needed explanation 
than to offer a needless one ; because the latter looks as if 5 
the editor were intent on thrusting himself between the 
author and the reader. 

Probably we all understand that the best style in writing 
is where average minds, on reading it, are prompted to say, 
" Why, almost anybody could have done that " ; and a style 10 
that is continually making such readers sensible of their 
ignorance, or of their inferiority to the writer, is not good. 
For the proper light of a truly luminous speaker is one that 
strikes up a kindred light in the hearer ; so that the light 
seems to come, and indeed really does come, from the 15 
hearer's own mind. It is much the same in editing a stand- 
ard author for common use. And for an editor to be all 
the while, or often, putting average readers in mind how 
ignorant and inferior they are, is not the best way, nor the 
right way, to help them. 20 

But what seems specially needful to be kept in mind is, 
that when common people read Shakespeare, it is not to 
learn etymology, or grammar, or philology, or lingual antiqui- 
ties, or criticism, or the technicalties of scholarism, but to 
learn Shakespeare himself; to understand the things he puts 25 
before them, to take in his thought, to taste his wisdom, to 
feel his beauty, to be kindled by his fire, to be refreshed with 
his humor, to glow with his rapture, and to be stolen from 
themselves and transported into his moral and intellectual 
whereabout ; in a' word, to live, breathe, think, and feel with 30 
him. I am so simple and old-fashioned as to hold that, in 
so reading the Poet, they are putting him to the very best 



94 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

and highest use of which he is capable. Even their intellects, 
I think, will thrive far better so, than by straining themselves 
to a course of mere intellectualism. All which means, to be 
sure, that far more real good will come, even to the mind, 

5 by foolishly enjoying Shakespeare than by learnedly parsing 
him. So that here I am minded to apply the saying of 
Wordsworth, that " he is oft the wisest man who is not wise 
at all." 

Now I cannot choose but think that, if this were always 

io duly borne in mind, we should see much more economy of 
erudition than we do. It is the instinct of a crude or con- 
ceited learning to be ever emphasizing itself, and poking its 
fingers into the readers' eyes : but a ripe and well-assimilated 
learning does not act thus : it is a fine spirit working in the 

15 mind's blood, and not a sort of foam or scum mantling its 
surface, or an outgrowth bristling into notice. 4 " So that here, 
as in all true strength, modesty rules the transpiration. 
Accordingly an editor's proper art is to proceed, not by a 
formal and conscious use of learning, but by the silent effi- 

20 cacy thereof transfusing itself insensibly into and through 
his work, so as to accomplish its purpose without being 
directly seen. 

Nor is Shakespeare's language so antiquated, or his idiom 
of thought so remote from ordinary apprehension, as to 

25 require a minute, or cumbrous, or oppressive erudition for 
making his thoughts intelligible to average minds. His 
diction, after all, is much nearer the common vernacular of 
the day than that of his editors : for where would these be 
if they did not write in a learned style? To be sure, here, 

30 as elsewhere, an editor's art, or want of art, can easily find 
or make ever so many difficulties, in order to magnify itself 
and its office by meeting them, or by seeming to meet them. 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 95 

And in fact it has now become, or is fast becoming, very 
much the fashion to treat Shakespeare in this way; an elab- 
orate and self-conscious erudition using him as a sort of 
perch to flap its wings and crow from. So we have had and 
are having editions of his plays designed for common use, 5 
wherein the sunlight of his poetry is so muffled and stran- 
gled by a thick haze of minute, technical, and dictionary 
learning, that common eyes can hardly catch any fresh and 
clear beams of it. Small points and issues almost number- 
less, and many of them running clean off into distant tenth- 10 
cousin matters, are raised, as if poetry so vital and organic 
as his, and with its mouth so full of soul music, were but a 
subject for lingual and grammatical dissection ; or a thing 
to be studied through a microscope, and so to be " exam- 
ined, ponder'd, search'd, probed, vex'd, and criticised. " + Is 15 
not all this very much as if the main business of readers, 
with Shakespeare's page before them, were to " pore, and 
dwindle as they pore "? 

Here the ruling thought seems to be, that the chief profit 
of studying Shakespeare is to come by analyzing and parsing 20 
his sentences, not by understanding and enjoying his poetry. 
But, assuredly, this is not the way to aid and encourage 
people in the study of Shakespeare. They are not to be 
inspired with a right love or taste for him by having his 
lines encumbered with such commentatorial redundances 25 
and irrelevancies. Rather say, such a course naturally ren- 
ders the Poet an unmitigable bore to them, and can hardly 
fail to disgust and repel them ; unless, perchance, it may 
superinduce upon them a certain dry rot of formalistic 
learning. For, in a vast many cases, the explanations are 30 
far more obscure to the average reader than the things 
explained ; and he may well despair of understanding the 



96 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Poet, when he so often finds it impossible to understand 
his explainers. Or the effect of such a course, if it have 
any but a negative effect, can hardly be other than to tease 
and card the common sense out of people, and train them 
5 into learned and prating dunces, instead of making them 
intelligent, thoughtful, happy men and women in the ordi- 
nary tasks, duties, and concerns of life. 

Thus Shakespeare is now in a fair way to undergo the 
same fate which a much greater and better book has already 

10 undergone. 4 " For even so a great many learned minds, 
instead of duly marking how little need be said, and how 
simply that little should be said, have tried, apparently, how 
much and how learnedly they could write upon the Bible ; 
how many nice questions they could raise, and what elabo- 

15 rate comments they could weave about its contents. Take, 
for example, the Sermon on the Mount : left to its natural 
and proper working, that brief piece of writing has in it more 
of true culture-force or culture-inspiration than all the mere 
scientific books in the world put together : and learned com- 

20 mentaries stand, or claim to stand, in the rank of scientific 
works. Yet even here, as experience has amply proved, a 
sort of learned incontinence can easily so intricate and per- 
plex the matter, and spin the sense out into such a curious 
and voluminous interpretation, as fairly to swamp plain 

25 minds, and put them quite at a loss as to what the Divine 
utterances mean. The thing is clear enough, until a garru- 
lous and obtrusive learning takes it in hand; and then dark- 
ness begins to gather round it. 

And so the Bible generally, as we all know, has been so 

30 worried and belabored with erudite, or ignorant, but at all 
events diffusive, long-winded, and obstructive commentary; 
its teachings and efficacies have got so strangled by the 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 97 

interminable yarns of interpretation spun about them ; that 
now at length common people have pretty much lost both 
their faith in it and their taste for it : reverence for it has 
come to be regarded as little better than an exploded super- 
stition : and indeed its light can hardly struggle or filtrate 5 
through the dense vapors of learned and elaborate verbosity 
exhaled from subjacent regions. The tendency now is to 
replace the Bible with Shakespeare as our master code of 
practical wisdom and guidance. I am far, very far indeed, 
from regarding this as a sign of progress, either moral or 10 
intellectual : viewed merely in reference to literary taste, the 
Bible is incomparably beyond any other book in the world : 
but, if such a substitution must be made, Shakespeare is 
probably the best. The Poet himself tells us, " they that 
dally nicely with words may quickly make them wanton." 15 
And so, to be sure, the process has set in, and is already 
well advanced, of smothering his proper light beneath com- 
mentatorial surplusage and rubbish. 

So strong is the conceit of studying all things scientific- 
ally, that we must, forsooth, have Shakespeare used as the 20 
raw material of scientific manufacture. It seems to be pre- 
sumed that people cannot rightly feed upon his poetry, 
unless it be first digested for them into systematic shape 
by passing through some gerund-grinding laboratory. 4 * But 
the plain truth is, that works of imagination cannot be 25 
mechanized and done over into the forms of science, with- 
out a total dissipation of their life and spirit, of all indeed 
that is properly constitutive in them. It is simply like dis- 
secting a bird in order to find out where the music comes 
from and how it is made. 30 

I have, perhaps, dwelt upon this topic too long, and may 
fitly close it with a few pertinent words from Bacon, which 



98 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

always come into my remembrance when thinking on the 
subject. "The first distemper of learning/' says he, "is 
when men study words and not matter. And how is it pos- 
sible but this should have an operation to discredit learn- 
5 ing, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned 
men's works like the first letter of a patent, or a limned 
book ; which, though it hath large flourishes, yet is but a 
letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good 
emblem or portraiture of this vanity : for words are but the 

io images of matter ; and, except they have the life of reason 
and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall 
in love with a picture." In another passage, he puts the 
matter as follows : " Surely, like as many substances in 
Nature which are solid do putrefy and corrupt into worms ; 

15 so it is the property of good and sound knowledge to 
putrefy and dissolve into a number of subtile, idle, unwhole- 
some, and (as I may term them) vermiculate questions, 
which have indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, 
but no soundness of matter or goodness of quality." 

20 To preclude misapprehension, as far as may be, I must 
add that the foregoing remarks have an eye only to editions 
of the Poet designed for common use ; and so cannot be 
justly construed as reflecting on such as look mainly to the 
special use of students and scholars. Doubtless there may 

25 be, nay, there must be, from time to time, say as often as 
once in forty or fifty years, highly learned editions of Shake- 
speare; such, for instance, as Mr. Howard Furness's mag- 
nificent Variorum, which, so far as it has come, is a truly 
monumental achievement of learning, judgment, good sense, 

30 and conscientious, painstaking industry. 4 " Of course such a 
work must needs enter very largely into the details and 
processes of the subject, pursuing a great many points out 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 99 

through all the subtilties and intricacies of critical inquiry. 
But, for the generality of readers, such a handling of the 
theme is obviously quite out of the question : in this hard 
working-day world, they have too much else in hand to be 
tracing out and sifting the nice questions which it is the 5 
business of a profound and varied scholarship to investigate 
and settle; and the last and highest results of such scholar- 
ship is all that they can possibly have time or taste for. If 
any one says that common readers, such as at least ninety- 
nine persons in a hundred are and must be, should have the 10 
details and processes of the work put before them, that so 
they may be enabled to form independent judgments for 
themselves ; — I say, whoever talks in this way is either 
under a delusion himself, or else means to delude others. 
It may flatter common readers to be told that they are just 15 
as competent to judge for themselves in these matters as 
those who have made a lifelong study of them : but the 
plain truth is, that such readers must perforce either take the 
results of deep scholarship on trust, or else not have them at 
all ; and none but a dupe or a quack, or perhaps a com- 20 
pound of the two, would ever think of representing the 
matter otherwise. 

But the main business of this Preface is yet to come, and 
what remains must be chiefly occupied with certain ques- 
tions touching the Poet's text. And here I must first make 25 
a brief general statement of the condition in which his 
text has come down to us, leaving the particular details in 
this kind to be noted in connection with the several plays 
themselves. 

Of the thirty-eight plays included in this edition, sixteen, 30 
or, if we count in the originals of the Second and Third 



IOO HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Parts of King Henry the Sixth, eighteen, were published, 
severally and successively, in what are known as the quarto 
editions, during the Poet's life. Some of them were printed 
in that form several times, but often with considerable 

5 variations of text. One more, Othello, was issued in that 
form in 1622, six years after the Poet's death. Copies 
of these editions are still extant, though in some cases 
exceedingly rare.* Most of these issues were undoubtedly 
"stolen and surreptitious"; and it is nowise likely that 

10 in any of them a single page of the proofs was ever cor- 
rected by Shakespeare himself. In the popular literature 
of his time, proof reading generally was done, if done at all, 
with such a degree of slovenliness as no one would think 
of tolerating now. And that proof sheets can be rightly 

15 and properly corrected by none but the author himself, or 
by one very closely and minutely familiar with his mind, 
his mouth, and his hand, is a lesson which an experience 
of more than thirty years in the matter has taught me beyond 
all peradventure. And, in fact, the printing in most of 

20 these quarto issues is so shockingly bad, that no one can 
gain an adequate idea of how bad it is, except by minutely 
studying the text as there given, and comparing it in detail 
with the text as given in modern editions. 

All the forecited plays, with one exception, Pericles, were 

25 set forth anew in the celebrated folio of 1623,+ seven years 
after the Poet's death. Most of them are indeed printed 
much better there than in the earlier issues, though some 
of them are well known to have been printed from quarto 
copies. Therewithal the folio set forth, for the first time, so 

30 far as is known, all the other plays included in this edition, 
except The Two Noble Kinsmen. The volume was pub- 
lished, professedly at least, under the editorial care of the 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE ioi 

Poet's friends and fellow-actors, John Heminge and Henry 
Condell. 

The printing of the folio is exceedingly unequal : in 
some of the plays, as, for instance, Julius Ccesar, Twelfth 
Night, and As You Like It, it is remarkably good for the 5 
time, insomuch that the text, generally, is got into an 
orderly and intelligible state without much trouble ; while 
others, as Airs Well, Coriolanus, and Ti?7ion of Athens, 
abound in the grossest textual corruptions, so that the labor 
of rectification seems to be literally endless. Even where 10 
the printing is best, there are still so many palpable, and 
also so many more or less probable, misprints, that the text, 
do the best we can with it, must often stand under con- 
siderable uncertainty. It is not unlikely that in some parts 
of the volume the editors themselves may have attended 15 
somewhat to the correcting of the proofs, while in others 
they left it entirely to the printers. Of course all the plays 
then first published must have been printed either from the 
author's own manuscripts, or else from playhouse transcripts 
of them. Doubtless these were made by different hands, 20 
sometimes with reasonable care, sometimes otherwise, and 
so with widely varying degrees of accuracy and legibility. 

In their " Address to the Readers," the editors, after 
referring to the earlier quarto issues, go on as follows : + 
" Even those are now offered to your view cured and per- 25 
feet of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers 
as he [the author] conceived them ; who, as he was a happy 
imitator of Nature, was a most gentle expresser of it : and 
what he thought, he uttered with that easiness, that we have 
scarce received from him a blot in his papers." Heminge 30 
and Condell appear to have been honest and amiable men ; 
but they naturally felt a strong interest in having the volume 



102 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

sell well, and so were moved to recommend it as highly as 
they could to purchasers. Probably there was something of 
truth in what they said, perhaps enough to excuse, if not to 
justify them in saying it : nevertheless it is perfectly certain 
5 that their words were not true to the full extent ; and most 
likely what was true only of a portion of the volume they 
deemed it right to put forth in a general way as if appli- 
cable to the whole, without staying to express any limita- 
tions or exceptions. The folio was reprinted in 1632, again 

10 in 1664, and yet again in 1685. 4 " The folio of 1632 was 
set forth with a good many textual changes, made by an 
unknown hand ; sometimes corrections, and sometimes 
corruptions, but none of them carrying any authority. 
Changes of text, though less both in number and impor- 

15 tance, were also made in the third and fourth folios. 

Before passing on from this topic, I must add that, after 

1623, single plays continued to be reprinted, from time to 

time, in quarto form. But as these are seldom of any use 

towards ascertaining or helping the text, it seems not worth 

20 the while to specify them in detail. Probably the most val- 
uable of them is that of Othello, issued in 1630. Others 
of them are occasionally referred to in the Critical Notes. 

As I have frequent occasion to cite a famous volume 
which I designate as " Collier's second folio," + it appears 

25 needful to give some account thereof in this place. — In 
1849, Mr. J. P. Collier, a very learned and eminent Shake- 
spearean, lighted upon and purchased a copy of the second 
folio containing a very large number of verbal, literal, and 
punctuative alterations in manuscript ; all of course intended 

30 as corrections of the text. At what time or times, and by 
what hand or hands, these changes were made, has not been 
settled, nor is likely to be. For some time there was a good 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 103 

deal of pretty warm controversy about them. All, I believe, 
are now pretty much agreed, and certainly such is my own 
judgment, that none of them have any claim to be regarded 
as authentic : most of them are corruptions decidedly ; but 
a considerable number may be justly spoken of as correc- 5 
tions ; and some of them are exceedingly happy and valu- 
able. To be sure, of those that may be called apt and good, 
the larger portion had been anticipated by modern editors, 
and so had passed into the current text. Still there are 
enough of original or unanticipated corrections to render the 10 
volume an important contribution towards textual rectifica- 
tion. Nevertheless they all stand on the common footing of 
conjectural emendation, and so carry no authority in their 
hand but that of inherent fitness and propriety. 

Herewith I must also mention another copy of the same 15 
folio, which is sometimes referred to in my Critical Notes. 
This was owned by the late Mr. S. W. Singer, also one of 
the most learned and eminent Shakespeareans of his time. 
All that need be said of it here may as well be given in 
Singer's own words : " In June, 1852, 1 purchased from Mr. 20 
Willis, the bookseller, a copy of the second folio edition of 
Shakespeare, in its original binding, which, like that of Mr. 
Collier, contains very numerous manuscript corrections by 
several hands : the typographical errors, with which that 
edition abounds, are sedulously corrected, and the writers 25 
have also tried their hands at conjectural emendation exten- 
sively. Many of these emendations correspond to those in 
Mr. Collier's volume, but chiefly in those cases where the 
error in the old copy was pretty evident ; but the readings 
often vary, and sometimes for the better." 3° 

Thus much may suffice for indicating generally the con- 
dition in which Shakespeare's plays have come down to us. 



104 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

Of course the early quartos and the first folio are, in the 
proper sense, our only authorities for the Poet's text. But 
his text has not been, and most assuredly never will be 
allowed to remain in the condition there given. The labors 
5 and the judgment of learned, sagacious, painstaking, diligent 
workmen in the field have had, ought to have, must have, a 
good deal of weight in deciding how the matter should go. + 
And now the question confronts us whether, after all, there 
is any likelihood of Shakespeare's text being ever got into a 

10 satisfactory state. Perhaps, nay, I may as well say probably, 
not. Probably the best to be looked for here is a greater 
or less degree of approximation to such a state. At all 
events, if it come at all, it is to come as the slow cumula- 
tive result of a great many minds working jointly, or sever- 

15 ally, and successively, and each contributing its measure, 
be it more, be it less, towards the common cause. A mite 
done here, and a mite done there, will at length, when time 
shall cast up the sum, accomplish we know not what. 

The Bible apart, Shakespeare's dramas are, by general 

20 consent, the greatest classic and literary treasure of the 
world. His text, with all the admitted imperfections on its 
head, is nevertheless a venerable and sacred thing, and 
must nowise be touched but under a strong restraining 
sense of pious awe. + Woe to the man that exercises his 

25 critical surgery here without a profound reverence for the 
subject ! All glib ingenuity, all shifty cleverness, should be 
sternly warned off from meddling with the matter. Nothing 
is easier than making or proposing ingenious and plausible 
corrections. But changes merely ingenious are altogether 

30 worse than none ; and whoever goes about the work with 
his mind at all in trim for it will much rather have any cor- 
rections he may make or propose flatly condemned as bad, 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 105 

than have that sweetish epithet politely smiled, or sneered, 
upon them. On the other hand, to make corrections that are 
really judicious, corrections that have due respect to all sides 
of the case, and fit all round, and that keep strictly within 
the limits of such freedom as must be permitted in the pre- 5 
senting of so great a classic so deeply hurt with textual cor- 
ruptions ; — this is, indeed, just the nicest and most delicate 
art in the whole work of modern editorship. And as a due 
application of this art requires a most circumspective and 
discriminating judgment, together with a lifelong acquaint- 10 
ance with the Poet's mental and rhythmic and lingual idiom ; 
so, again, there needs no small measure of the same prep- 
aration, in order to a judicious estimate of any ripely 
considered textual change. 

The work of ascertaining and amending Shakespeare's 15 
text systematically began with Rowe in 1709, 4 " his first edi- 
tion having come out that year, his second in 1714. The 
work was continued by Pope, who also put forth two edi- 
tions, in 1725 and i728. + Pope was followed by Theobald,* 
whose two editions appeared in 1733 and 1740. Then came 20 
Hanmer's edition in 1744,+ and Warburton's in i747- + All 
through the latter half of the eighteenth century the process 
was sedulously continued by Johnson, + Capell, 4 " Steevens, + 
Malone, 4 " and sundry others. Heath, though not an editor, 
was hardly inferior to any of them in understanding and 25 
judgment ; and his comments remain to this day among the 
best we have. Most of these men were very strong and 
broad in learning and sagacity, and in the other furnishings 
needful for their task ; none of them were wanting in 
respect for the Poet \ and all of them did good service. 30 

It must be admitted, however, that many, if not most, of 
these workmen handled the text with excessive freedom ; 



106 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

and perhaps it may be justly said that, taken all together, 
they corrupted quite as much as they corrected it. They 
seem to have gone somewhat upon the principle of giving 
what, in their judgment, the Poet ought to have written ; 
5 whereas the thing we want is not what anybody may think 
he ought to have written, but what, as nearly as can be 
judged, he actually did write. Accordingly much labor has 
since had to be spent in undoing what was thus overdone. 
During the present century the process of correction has 

io been kept up, but much more temperately, and by minds 
well fitted and furnished for the task, though probably, as a 
whole, not equal to the earlier series of workmen. Among 
these are Singer, Collier, Dyce, Staunton, Halliwell, and 
White, faithful and highly competent laborers, whose names 

15 will doubtless hold prominent and permanent places in 
Shakespearean lore. 

The excessive freedom in textual change used by the ear- 
lier series of editors has naturally had the effect of provoking 
a reaction. For the last forty years or thereabouts, this 

20 reaction has been in progress, and is now, I think, at its 
height, having reached an extreme fully as great, and not 
a whit more commendable than the former extreme. Of 
course this can hardly fail in due time to draw on another 
reaction ; and already signs are not wanting that such a 

25 result is surely forthcoming. To the former license of cor- 
rection there has succeeded a license, not less vicious, of 
interpretation. Explanations the most strained, far-fetched, 
and oversubtile are now very much the order of the day, — 
things sure to disgust the common sense of sober, candid, 

30 circumspective, cool-judging minds. It is said that the old 
text must not be changed save in cases of " absolute neces- 
sity " \ and this dictum is so construed, in theory at least, 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 107 

as to prompt and cover all the excesses of the most fanciful, 
fine-drawn, and futile ingenuity. The thing has grown to 
the ridiculous upshot of glozing and belauding printers' 
errors into poetic beauties, and the awkwardest hitchings 
and haltings of meter into " elegant retardations." To 5 
minds so captivated with their own ingenuity, an item of the 
old text that is utter nonsense is specially attractive \ because, 
to be sure, they can the more easily spell their own sense, 
or want of sense, into it. And so we see them doggedly tena- 
cious of such readings as none but themselves can explain, 10 
and fondly concocting such explanations thereof as none 
but themselves can understand ; tormenting the meaning 
they want out of words that are no more akin to it than the 
multiplication table is to a trilobite. Surely, then, the thing 
now most in order is a course of temperance and modera- 15 
tion, a calmness and equipoise of judgment, steering clear 
of both extremes, and sounding in harmony with plain old 
common sense, one ounce of which is worth more than a ton 
of exegetical ingenuity. For Shakespeare, be it observed, 
is just our great imperial sovereign of common sense ; and 20 
sooner or later the study of him will needs kill off all the 
editors that run in discord with this supreme quality of his 
workmanship. 

The present generation of Shakespeareans are rather con- 
spicuously, not to say ostentatiously, innocent of respect 25 
for their predecessors. They even seem to measure the • 
worth of their own doings by their self-complacent ignoring 
or upbraiding of what has been done before. Might it 
not be well for them to bethink themselves now and then 
what sort of a lesson their contempt of the past is likely to 30 
teach the future ? Possibly plain sensible people, who prefer 
small perspicuities to big obscurities, soft-voiced solidities to 



108 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

high-sounding nihilities, may take it into their heads that 
wisdom was not born with the present generation, and will 
not die with it. After all, Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, 
Warburton, Johnson, Capell, and others, though by no means 
5 infallible, yet were not fools : they knew several things ; 
and their minds were at least tolerably clear of conceit and 
cant : I suspect they understood their business quite as 
well, and labored in it quite as uprightly and fruitfully, as 
those who now insist on proceeding as if nothing had ever 

io been done ; as if it had been reserved exclusively for them 
to understand and appreciate the Poet. In this, as in some 
other matters, to " stand as if a man were author of him- 
self, and knew no other kin," is not exactly the thing. The 
best that any of us can do is to add somewhat, perhaps a 

15 very, very little, to the building that others have worked 
upon and helped to rear ; and, if we are to begin by a clean 
sweeping away of what others have done, that so our puny 
architecture may have a better chance of being seen, is it 
not. possible that the sum of our own doings, as time shall 

20 foot it up, will prove a minus quantity? 

Certainly changes in the old text of Shakespeare ought 
not to be made without strong and clear reasons : and, 
after they have been so made, stronger and clearer reasons 
may arise, or may be shown, for unmaking them. + Very 

25 well 1 be it so. But such reasons are not to be nonsuited 
by unreasonable explanations, by superfine glozings, and 
rhetorical smokings. The cacoethes emendandi and the 
cacoethes explanandi are alike out of place, and to be 
avoided. I have already quoted the phrase " absolute neces- 

30 sity," now so often used by the ultraists of textual conserva- 
tism. This phrase seems to bind the thing up very tightly : 
yet, even with those who urge it most strongly, it is found 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 109 

to have, in effect, no firm practical meaning; at least not 
a whit more than the phrase " strong and clear reasons." 
To illustrate what I mean : 

Mr. Furness, in his King Lear, III, vi, prints " This rest 
might yet have balm'd thy broken sinews" \ thus rejecting 5 
Theobald's reading, " broken senses" for the old text : and 
he does this on the ground that " the change is not abso- 
lutely necessary." Yet, in II, iv, he prints "To be a comrade 
of the wolf, and howl necessity's sharp pinch ! " thus substi- 
tuting howl, from Collier's second folio, for owl, the old 10 
reading. And I think he shows strong and clear reasons for 
the change. But, strictly speaking, I can see no absolute 
necessity for it : some tolerable sense can be made, has been 
made, out of the old text. Nay, more ; the change, in this 
case, as it seems to me, does not come so near being abso- 15 
lutely necessary as in the case of Theobald's senses, I must 
needs think that owl yields, of the two, a better and more 
fitting sense in the one place than sinews does in the other. 
Nevertheless, in the instance of howl, Mr. Furness seems 
to me to make out a clear case; to justify the change tri- 20 
umphantly ; this too without any approach to overstrained 
refinement ; insomuch that I should henceforth never think 
of printing the passage otherwise than as he prints it. So, 
be it that absolute necessity is the true rule, have we not 
here a pretty good instance of that rule being " more hon- 25 
or'd in the breach than the observance "? 

And I think the same argument will hold even more 
strongly touching another reading which. he adopts from the 
same source. It is in I, i, where he prints "It is no vicious 
blot, nor 0//^r foulness," instead of the old reading, " no 30 
vicious blot, murther, or foulness." Here the need of the 
change, to my thinking, is not so exigent nor so evident as 



HO HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

in either of the former cases, especially the first : a good 
deal, I think, can here be said in defense of the old reading : 
at all events, I can nowise understand how the absolute 
necessity that rules out senses can consistently rule in howl 
5 and nor other. But Mr. Furness, with all his austere and, 
as I must think, rather overstrained conservatism, so com- 
mands my respect, that I accept his judgment in both the 
latter cases, though dissenting from him altogether in the first; 
herein following, as I take it, the absolute necessity which he 

io practices, and not the one which he preaches. And indeed 

so many men preach better than they practice, that it is 

decidedly refreshing to meet, now and then, with one who 

reverses this order, and makes his practice come out ahead. 

Of course this point might easily be illustrated at almost 

15 any length. For the old text has hundreds of cases substan- 
tially parallel with those I have cited ; cases where, in my 
judgment, there are strong and clear reasons for textual 
changes made or proposed by former Shakespeareans, but 
where the new school, with their canon of " absolute neces- 

20 sity," hold on to stark corruptions, and then make up for 
their textual strictness with the largest exegetical license. 
Yet I have never caught any of these bigots (so I must term 
them) of the old letter finding fault when we, of a somewhat 
more liberal bent, have adopted any corrections which they 

25 have themselves proposed. Here, as, to be sure, is very nat- 
ural, their " absolute necessity ,, smiles itself into an aspect 
practicable enough. 

For, in truth, several of them seem equally intent on 
finding reasons for condemning corrections that others have 

30 made, and for proposing or approving new corrections ; and 
their wrong-headed, perhaps I should say pig-headed, inge- 
nuity in both parts of the business is sometimes ludicrous, 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE in 

sometimes otherwise. So, for instance, one of them has 
lately approved, and another adopted, a new reading in The 
Tempest,I,ii: "-Urchins shall forth #/vast of night, that they 
may work all exercise on thee " ; where both the old and 
the common reading is, " Urchins shall, for that vast of night 5 
that they may work, all exercise on thee." Here, of course, 
for gives the sense of duration, or prolonged action ; which 
is just what the occasion requires. For it is well known that 
urchins were wont to go forth, and work, or play, during the 
vast of night, anyhow; this was their special right or privi- 10 
lege ; and Prospero means that, during that time, he will 
have them exercise their talents on Caliban. In my poor 
opinion, therefore, both the approver and the adopter of the 
forecited change have thereby, so far as one instance can 
tell against them, earned an exclusion, or a dismissal, from 15 
the seat of judgment in questions of that sort. However, 
when any of these gentlemen offer us, as they sometimes do, 
corrections that can show strong and clear reasons, I, for 
one, shall be happy to prefer their practice also to their 
preaching ; and, if they see fit to frown their preaching 20 
upon me, I have but to laugh back their own practice upon 
them : so, if they can stand it, I can. 

But there is one thing which I feel bound to set my face 
against, however insignificant that setting may be. It is 
this. Of course there are a great many plain cases of textual 25 
corruption, where, notwithstanding, a full and perfect cer- 
tainty as to the right correction is not to be attained. These 
often try an editor's labor and judgment and patience to 
the uttermost. But it is an editor's business, in such cases, 
to sift and weigh the whole matter with all possible care, to 30 
make up his mind, and do the best he can. This is a tedi- 
ous and painful, as also, in most cases, a thankless process. 



112 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

So a custom has lately been started, for editors, when on 
this score any "doubts or scruples tease the brain, ,, to 
shirk the whole matter, to shift off the burden upon others, 
and to dodge all responsibility and all hazard of a wrong 
5 decision, by sticking an obelus in to note the corruption ; 
thus calling the reader's attention to his need of help, and 
yet leaving him utterly unhelped. This is indeed " most 
tolerable and not to be endured." It is, in effect, equiva- 
lent to telling us that they know more than all the pre- 

io vious editors, yet do not know enough for the cause they 
have undertaken, and so have no way but to adjourn 
the court. 

There is one other topic upon which I must say a few 
words. — It is somewhat in question how far the spelling 

15 and the verbal forms of the old copies ought to be retained. 
Mr. White, following the folio, prints murther for murder, 
f adorn for fathom, and in some cases, if I rightly remember, 
moder for mother. Now there seems to me just as much 
reason for keeping the two latter archaisms as for keeping 

20 the first ; that is to say, none at all. Herein, however, 
Mr. White is at least consistent ; which is more than can be 
said of some other recent editing; though I admit that in 
this instance consistency is not a jewel. And Mr. Furness, 
in the Preface to his King Lear, announces that hereafter he 

25 shall adhere to the old form, or old spelling, of then for than, 
as also of the antique concessive and for an. In an edition 
like his, designed chiefly for students and scholars, there may 
be some reason for this which does not hold in the case of 
editions looking to general use ; yet even that appears to 

30 me somewhat more than doubtful. Mr. Furness urges that 
Spenser always uses then for than, and that none of his 
modern editors think of substituting the latter. But Spenser 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 113 

manifestly took pains to give his language a special air or 
smack of antiquity, and so made it more archaic than the 
general usage of his time. Moreover, Spenser is now very 
little read, if at all, save by scholars and students ; and, if I 
were to edit any portion of him for common use, I should 5 
make no scruple of printing than, except in cases where then 
might need be kept for the rhyme. It may be well to add, 
that in the original editions of Hooker's great work than is, 
I think, always spelled then : nevertheless the late Mr. Keble, 
in his edition, uniformly prints than; and I suspect it will 10 
be a good while before we shall see any better specimen of 
editorial workmanship than Keble's Hooker. 

Again : All students of Shakespeare know that the folio 
has many instances of God buy you, the old colloquial 
abridgment of God be with you, which has been still further 15 
shortened into our Good bye. Probably, in the Poet's time, 
the phrase was sounded God bwy you. Here I see no other, 
or no better, way to keep both sense and sound, and rhythm 
also, than by printing God ' b' wi' you; and so in this edition 
I always print, or mean to print. Would Mr. Furness, in 20 
this instance also, retain the old form or spelling buy ? The 
phrase, I believe, does not occur in King Lear, so that he 
had no occasion there for making any sign of his thought on 
the subject. The phrase occurs repeatedly in Ha?nlet, once in 
II, i, and again in II, ii ; and there he prints " God be wi' 25 
you " and " God be wi' ye " ; but on some points his views 
have changed since his superb edition of that play was 
issued. Whatever his purpose may be, I cannot but think 
there is quite as good reason for adhering strictly to the old 
letter in this instance as in that of then or of and. And the 30 
case is substantially the same in reference to a great many 
other words : in fact, I do not see how this principle of 



114 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

retention can consistently stop, till it shall have restored 
the old spelling altogether. 

My own practice in this matter is, wherever anything either 
of sense, or of rhythm, or of meter, or of rhyme, is involved, 

5 to retain the old forms or old spelling. For instance, the 
folio has eyne for eyes, and rhyming with mine ; also denay 
for denial, and rhyming with say : it also has throughly for 
thoroughly, and thorough for through. Of course I should 
never think, probably no editor would think, of disturbing 

10 these archaisms, or such as these. Even when, as is often 
the case, there is no reason of meter or of rhyme for keep- 
ing them, they are essential items in the Poet's rhythm ; for 
good prose has a rhythm of its own as well as verse. Now, 
Shakespeare, especially in his verse, was evidently very par- 

15 ticular and exact in the care of his rhythm and meter, and 
therefore of his syllables. The folio has almost numberless 
minute proofs and indications of this ; and here, of course, 
the smaller the note, the more significance it bears as regards 
the Poet's habit and purpose. Perhaps there is no one 

20 point wherein this is of tener shown than in his very frequent 
elision of the article the, so as to make it coalesce with the 
preceding word into one syllable. So, especially in his later 
plays, there is almost no end to such elisions as by th\ 
do th\ for th\ from th\ on th\ to th\ etc.; and the folio has 

25 many instances of the double elision wV th } for with the. 
Now, I hold, and have long held, it important that, as far as 
practicable, these little things be carefully preserved, not 
only because they are essential parts of the Poet's verbal 
modulation, but also as significant notes or registers of his 

30 scrupulous and delicate attention to this element of his 
workmanship. Yet the whole thing is totally ignored in all 
the recent editions that I am conversant with; all, with 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 115 

the one exception of Mr. Furness's latest volume, his King 
Lear, where it is carefully attended to. + And right glad am 
I that it is; for, as I must think, it ought never to have 
been neglected. 

But, in certain other points, — points where nothing of 5 
rhyme or meter or rhythm or sense is concerned, — I have 
pursued, and shall pursue, a somewhat different course. — It 
is well known to Shakespeareans that the old text has some 
twelve or fifteen, perhaps more, instances of it used posses- 
sively, or where we should use its, the latter not being a 10 
current form in the Poet's time, though then just creeping 
into use. And so the English Bible as originally printed in 
1 61 1, has not a single instance of its: it has, however, one 
or two, perhaps more, instances of it used in the same way. 
In these cases, all modern editions, so far %s I know, print 15 
its, and are, I hold, unquestionably right in doing so. It is 
true, Shakespeare's old text has repeated instances of its, 
and these are more frequent in the later plays than in the 
earlier. And in most of these cases the folio prints it with 
an apostrophe, it 's ; though in two or three places, if not 20 
more, we there have it printed without the apostrophe. 

In all these cases, whether of it or it's or its, I make no 
scruple whatever of printing simply its ; though I sometimes 
call attention to the old usage in my Critical Notes. For, 
in truth, I can perceive no sort of sense or reason in retain- 25 
ing the possessive it in Shakespeare's text, or, at all events, 
in any presentation of it designed for common use. Yet we 
have some recent editing apparently taking no little credit 
to itself for keeping up and propagating this unmeaning 
and worthless bit of archaic usage ; whereas the Poet him- 30 
self was evidently impatient of it, as he shook himself more 
and more free from it, the riper he grew. Of course the 



Il6 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

same recent editing insists punctually on keeping the apos- 
trophized form, it 's, wherever the folio prints it so. Surely 
there is no more reason for retaining the apostrophe here 
than there is for omitting it in the numberless cases where 
5 the folio omits it; as in " like my brothers fault," and 
" against my brothers life." For all who have so much as 
looked into that volume must know that genitives and 
plurals are there commonly printed just alike. 

And now a word as to the ordering of the plays in this 

10 edition. 4 " The folio has them arranged in three distinct 
series, severally entitled Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. 
The plays of the first and third series are there arranged 
seemingly at haphazard, and without any regard to the order 
of time in which they were written ; those of the second 

15 or historic series, simply according to the chronological 
order of the persons and events represented in them ; the 
three that were no doubt written first being thus placed 
after several that were of later composition. In this edition, 
the three series of the folio are kept distinct; but the 

20 several plays of each series are meant to be arranged, as 
nearly as may be, according to the chronological order of 
the writing. This is done merely because such appears to 
be the most natural and fitting principle of arrangement, 
and not that the Poet may be read or studied " historically" ; 

25 a matter which is made a good deal of by some, but which, 
as it seems to me, is really of no practical consequence 
whatever. 4 " Nor is it claimed that the actual order of the 
writing is precisely followed in every particular : in fact, 
this order has not yet been fully settled, and probably never 

30 will be ; though, to be sure, something considerable has been 
done towards such settlement within the last few years. 
Cambridge, August 2, 1880 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 117 

To my original Preface I am now moved to add, from a 
high authority, the following paragraphs in corroboration of 
certain points therein taken. When writing that Preface, 
I either had not read, or had quite forgotten, the matter 
in question, else I should have made some use of it then. 5 
It is from Dr. C. M. Ingleby's book entitled A Complete 
View of the Shakespeare Controversy, 1861 : "It is unfor- 
tunately true that in an enormous number of instances the 
text of Shakespeare, whether we find it in the quartos or 
the folio, is in such an abominably corrupt state, that emen- 10 
dation is a necessity, and must be acknowledged to be so 
even by those who regard it as an evil, and would never 
allow it where any kind of sense can be tortured out of the 
original words. Innumerable are the phrases out of which 
no possible sense can be tortured, by any kind of exegetical 15 
maneuver. Every editor has his own favorite nostrums for 
many of these : but some cases are so hopeless, that it is 
an almost universal custom for editors to print the nonsense 
of the original text, in sheer despair of superseding it by 
any plausible emendations. Of these almost hopeless cruces 20 
the number does not exceed twenty-five. In some the diffi- 
culty lies in the construction of the sentence ; in others, in 
the use of words which have not, and probably never had, any 
meaning. But these form but a drop in the ' multitudinous 
seas' of misprints with which the text of quartos and folios are 25 
alike overwhelmed. In fact, it is not going too far to affirm 
the very reverse of Professor Craik's dictum, and aver that the 
first folio edition of Shakespeare is the worst-printed work, of 
any pretensions to permanent interest, dramatic or otherwise, 
that the first half of the seventeenth century produced. 30 

" Accordingly, the editors and conjectural critics of the 
two editions cum notis variorum not unnaturally fell into the 
extreme of loose conjecture ; they were more anxious to 



Il8 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

reform than to understand : and the editions of our own 
day afford abundant evidence of a reaction upon that lax- 
ness of criticism, and almost universally err in the extreme 
of a too close adherence to the old copies. Against this blind 
5 deference to the printed authorities, the following protest 
of Mr. W. N. Lettsom cannot be too often repeated : 

" The earlier editors were no doubt far too ready to tamper 
with the original text : some of their successors have run into 
the other extreme ; they perversely maintain the most ridicu- 

10 lous blunders of the old copies, and almost seem disposed to 
place conjectural criticism on a level with haphazard guesswork. 
What is called conjecture, however, is neither more nor less 
than a particular application of circumstantial evidence ; and, 
if we receive such evidence when property or life is at stake, 

15 surely we should not reject it when we are sitting in judgment 
merely on words and syllables. At any rate, we should be sadly 
disappointed if we expected to escape the hazards of conjec- 
ture by a servile adherence to old copies. Scholars and critics 
are not the only persons who tamper with texts. Correctors, 

20 transcribers, and compositors have been much too ready to 
alter whatever they were unable to understand ; their stupid 
sophistications have too often overlaid the genuine readings, 
and have been blindly received, as of paramount authority, by 
the unsuspecting simplicity of overcautious commentators. 

25 " It would be well if the latter stopped here : unfortunately 
they are not satisfied with retaining corruptions ; they must 
needs attempt to defend and explain them. In consequence 
they get into a bad habit of wresting and straining language, 
and finally become thorough proficients in the bewildering art 

30 of forcing any sense out of any words. In their desperate 
efforts to extract sense out of nonsense, the Poet himself has 
been too often sacrificed to the printer, and has thus gained a 
character for obscurity to a degree far beyond his deserts. " 
Cambridge, March 4, 1881 



DANIEL WEBSTER. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : 

One hundred years ago to-day, a very quiet but vastly 
fruitful event took place up in New Hampshire : it was the 
birth of Daniel Webster. The City of Boston and the State 
of Massachusetts had this great man in the councils of the 5 
Nation nearly twenty-eight years ; and I think I may safely 
say that, from his presence and services there, they have 
reaped more of honor and of solid benefit than from all the 
other men they have had in that place during the last two 
generations put together. Such being the case, I had hoped 10 
that Boston would remember her illustrious citizen, her peer- 
less statesman, and make some fitting commemoration of the 
day. She has not seen fit to do so ; and this is one reason 
why I have undertaken to do what I can, to manifest a be- 
coming respect for the hundredth anniversary of Daniel 15 
Webster's birth. + I fear, indeed, that Boston has not yet 
fully recovered from that old disease under which she turned 
away from her greatest and loveliest man, this too in his 
gray-haired age, and even " struck him with her tongue, 
most serpent-like, upon the very heart." In earlier days, she 20 
seems indeed to have understood and appreciated Webster 
pretty well ; yet I was much taken, some years ago, with a 
remark made to me by the late Judge Redfield, that " Boston 
never could get water enough together to float him." 

The theme I am to speak upon is one that lies very near 25 
my heart, this too both as an American and as a man \ and 

119 



( 



120 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

I propose to utter my thoughts with considerable plainness 
and freedom. For, in truth, I have no popularity to lose, 
and do not care to make any ; that being a thing I have no 
use for, nor should known what to do with, if I had it. 
5 As Americans, we have a right to be proud, we ought to 
be proud, it will do us good to be proud, of Daniel Webster. 
He is the one imperial intellect of our nation ; altogether 
the greatest and most catholic mind this country has pro- 
duced. In fact, he is not so properly one man as a multi- 

10 tude of men, rather say, a multitudinous man \ the varied 
powers, that are commonly dispersed among other men, 
being massed and consolidated in him. He stands second 
to none of our lawyers ; and his arguments in the Supreme 
Court of the United States probably did more than those 

15 of any other one man, except Chief Justice Marshall, towards 
establishing the principles and the practice of our national 
Constitution. 

But Webster is something more than our greatest man : 
he is one of the world's great men. Sage and venerable 

20 Harvard, on mature consideration no doubt, has spoken 
him for one of the seven great orators of the world. At the 
theater end of her superb Memorial Hall, which has the 
form of a semicircular polygon, in as many gablets or niches 
rising above the cornice, the seven heads, of gigantic size, 

25 stand forth to public view. First, of course, is Demosthenes 
the Greek ; second, also of course, Cicero the Roman ; 
third, Saint John Chrysostom, an Asiatic Greek, born about 
the middle of the fourth century ; fourth, Jaques Benigne 
Bossuet, the great French divine and author, contemporary 

30 with Louis the Fourteenth ; fifth, William Pitt the elder, 
Earl of Chatham, an Englishman ; sixth, Edmund Burke, 
an Irishman, probably the greatest genius of them all, 



DANIEL WEBSTER 121 

though not the greatest orator ; seventh, Daniel Webster. 
How authentic the likenesses may be, I cannot say, except 
in the case of Webster : here the likeness is true ; and, to 
my sense, Webster's head is the finest of the seven, unless 
that of Bossuet may be set down as its peer. 5 

In the world's volume of illustrious statesmen also, Web- 
ster's name may justly hold up its head among the highest ; 
very few men having, in this capacity, done so much for the 
political order and welfare of mankind. As an author, again, 
he stands very near, if not in, the foremost rank of English 10 
classics ; some of his speeches, like those of Burke, holding 
much the same relative place in what may be termed delib- 
erative and argumentative discourse, as Paradise Lost holds 
in epic poetry, Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality and his 
Ode to Duty in lyrical poetry, and Shakespeare's four great 15 
tragedies in the sphere of dramatic art. But what, in this 
regard should make Webster especially dear and venerable 
to us is, that he stands unquestionably at the head of our 
American classics, and is perhaps the only one of our authors 
that will live and be studied in future times : I hope indeed 20 
that Bryant will so live also, and two or three others, but 
am far from sure of it. For he must be a mighty tall man, 
I can tell you, whose head touches the classic summit. + 

It seems to me that a great deal too much stress is apt to 
be laid nowadays, at least among us, on the matter of style : 25 
for a good style is not to be reached by making it a para- 
mount aim : in that case the style becomes too self-con- 
scious, thinks quite too much of itself ; whereas the proper 
virtue of style lies in its being kept altogether subordinate to 
something else. And so the prime secret of a good style in 30 
writing is, that words be used purely in their representative 
character, or as standing for things, and not at all for their 



122 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

own sake. This it is that so highly distinguishes Webster's 
style, — the best yet written on this continent. His language 
is so transparent, that in reading him one seldom thinks of 
it, and can hardly see it. In fact, the proper character 
5 of his style is perfect, consummate manliness; in which 
quality I make bold to affirm that he has no superior in 
the whole range of English prose authorship : even Burke's 
style, though richer and more varied, is hardly equal to his 
in this supreme quality. And Webster, in his Antobiog- 

io raphy, touches the secret of this. "While in college," says 
he, " I delivered two or three occasional addresses, which 
were published. I trust they are forgotten : they were in 
very bad taste. I had not then learned that all true power 
in writing is in the idea, not in the style; an error into 

15 which the Ars rhetorica, as it is usually taught, might easily 
lead stronger heads than mine." + 

But Webster was not only a great lawyer, a great orator, 
a great statesman, a great author, a mighty discourser : he 
was emphatically a great man, — great in intellect, great 

20 in eloquence, great in soul, great in character, and in all 
the proper correspondences of greatness. Mr. Whipple, in 
the admirable essay prefixed to his selection of Webster's 
speeches, aptly and felicitously applies to him the phrase, 
"colossal manhood." I really do not know of any other 

25 single phrase that fits the subject so well. Those who often 
heard Webster in familiar conversation, if any such survive, 
will probably tell us they never heard any one else who 
approached him in that respect. On such occasions he 
not seldom had the Bible for his theme; and those who 

30 listened to his talk thereon could hardly choose but believe 
that either the Bible was inspired or else the speaker was. 
But, in "the talk that man holds with week-day man," his 



DANIEL WEBSTER 123 

greatness was so tempered with sweetness and amiability, 
and with the finer and softer graces of eloquence, that one 
naturally lost the sense of it. For he had no airs of supe- 
riority; would chat with the humblest as with a brother or 
a friend, And I have it from those who knew him long and 5 
well, that intimacy never wore off the impression of his great- 
ness : on the contrary, none could get so near him, or stay 
near him so long, but that he still kept growing upon them. 
A test that few men indeed can stand ! But he had some- 
thing better than all this : he was as lovely in disposition 10 
as he was great in mind : a larger, warmer, manlier heart, 
a heart more alive with tenderness and all the gentle affec- 
tions, was never lodged in a human breast. Of this I could 
give many telling and touching proofs from his private his- 
tory, if time would permit. It has been worthily noted how 15 
a little child, on entering a room where Webster was seated, 
and looking up into his great eyes, as these grew soft and 
mellow and sweet at the vision, would run instinctively into 
his arms and nestle in his bosom, as if yearning to get as near 
as possible to that great, tender heart. So that I make no 20 
scruple of regarding Daniel Webster as the crowning illus- 
tration of our American manhood. 

In the higher elements of oratory, I find, or seem to find, 
a close resemblance between Webster and Burke. Both are 
consummate masters of rhetoric ; yet the rhetoric of both 25 
is generally charged to the utmost with energy of thought : 
no hollowness here; no "sweet smoke"; nothing of mere 
surface splendor ; all is as solid as marble. Many of Web- 
ster's strains in this kind have been long and often used for 
exercise in declamation ; but this has only proved that no 30 
frequency of reading or hearing can wear the freshness and 
verdure out of them. And, in the line of parliamentary 



124 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

eloquence, nearly everything else produced in this country 
seems to me tame and flat beside Webster's ; while Burke's 
has well-nigh spoiled for me all else in the language except 
Webster's* 
5 In the common principles of all social and civil order, 
Burke is no doubt our best and wisest teacher. In handling 
the particular questions of his time, he always involves those 
principles, and brings them to their practical bearings, where 
they most " come home to the business and bosoms of men." 

10 And his pages are everywhere bright with the highest and 
purest political morality. Webster, also, is abundantly at 
home in those common principles : his giant grasp wields 
them with the ease and grace of habitual mastery : there- 
withal he is by far the ablest and clearest expounder 

15 we have of what may be termed the specialties of our 
American political system, £^o that we can hardly touch 
any point of our National State, but that he will approve 
himself at once our wisest and our pleasantest teachers) In 
fact, I hardly know* which to commend most, his political 

20 wisdom, his ponderous logic, the perfect manliness of his 
style, or the high-souled enthusiasm which generally ani- 
mates and tones his discourse; the latter qualities being 
no less useful to inspire the student with a noble patriotic 
ardor than the former to arm him with sound and fruitful 

25 instruction. 

I am not unmindful that, in thus placing Webster along- 
side of Burke, I may be inviting upon him a trial something 
too severe. 4 " I do not indeed regard him as the peer of 
Burke ; but it is my deliberate judgment that he comes 

30 nearer to Burke, and can better stand a fair comparison 
with him, than any other English-speaking statesman. In 
pure force of intellect, Burke may be something ahead of 



DANIEL WEBSTER 125 

him, and is far beyond him in strength and richness of 
imagination ; for he was, as Johnson described him, emphat- 
ically " a constellation " : on the other hand, Burke's tem- 
pestuous sensibility sometimes whirled him into exorbitances, 
where Webster's cooler temperament and more balanced 5 
make-up would probably have held him firm in his propriety. 
And Webster, though far above imitating any man, abounds 
in marks of a very close and diligent study of Burke. It 
seems specially noteworthy, that he was thoroughly at one 
with Burke in an intense aversion to political metaphysics, 10 
and to those speculative abstractions which, if attempted to 
be carried into the practical work of government, can never 
do anything but mischief. 

This reminds me to say something of the distinguished 
Southerner who was so long associated with Webster in our 15 
national councils. — John Caldwell Calhoun was a very able 
man, — a man, too, of most pure and honorable character ; 
a perfect gentleman indeed, as Webster also was. And the 
two men had a profound respect for each other. 4 " Webster 
admired the genius of Calhoun, and honored him for his 20 
high personal worth. Many a hard pounding, indeed, they 
gave each other in the national Senate ; but their hard 
poundings were always so marked with bland and good- 
natured dignity, that no ill feeling ever sprang up between 
them : each had indeed, and felt that he had, in the other 25 
a foeman worthy of his steel ; and their official intercourse 
may be justly set down as a model of senatorial courtesy. 
But Calhoun, it seems to me, was rather a great political 
metaphysician than a statesman, in the right sense of the 
term. In the latter part of his life at least, he was much 30 
given to refining among political abstractions, where all sorts 
of impracticable theories may easily be knocked together, 



126 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

and as easily knocked to pieces. Herein Webster differed 
from him in toto ; and would never go along at all with the 
noble Southerner in those speculative intricacies where men 
" find no end, in wandering mazes lost." For one of his 
5 prime characteristics was a large, healthy, vigorous, unfail- 
ing common sense, which always withheld him from extremes 
and one-sideness, and kept him from undertaking to upset 
or overrule experience and fact by dint of fine-spun political 
theories. He was indeed a very monarch of common sense ; 

io in which respect he probably surpassed Burke. And this, 
I take it, comes pretty near being the sovereign element of 
great statesmanship. — Strange, by the way, that the thing 
should be called commo?i sense, while in reality it is one of 
the most uncommon things in the world. But then, though 

15 extremely rare in possession, it is very common in recog- 
nition : in fact, nearly all men feel it, though few men 
have it. 

Accordingly in a speech delivered on the 2 2d of March, 
1838, Webster, after ' referring to certain questions wherein 

20 Calhoun had quite shifted off from his old ground, has the 
following : " The honorable member now takes these ques- 
tions with him into the upper heights of metaphysics, into 
the region of those refinements and subtile arguments which 
he rejected with so much decision in 181 7. He quits his 

25 old ground of common sense, experience, and the general 
understanding of the country, for a flight among theories 
and ethereal abstractions." I must add, that Calhoun, by 
his course in this respect, probably did a good deal more 
than any other one man in the country towards hatching 

30 and breeding the enormous mischief of our late Civil War. 
It is said that "whom the gods would destroy they first 
make mad "j and I can hardly conceive a surer way of 



DANIEL WEBSTER 127 

drawing men into suicidal madness than by fascinating them 
with metaphysical subtilties and abstraction-mongering. 

It is, then, full time that Webster should be reinstated in 
the place he held some thirty- five years ago in the minds 
and hearts of the American people. He is as great now as 5 
he was then, for time gnaws no breaches in workmanship 
so solid as his ; and his wise counsels are as applicable and 
as needful in all the leading national questions of this day 
as they were when his great living voice was heard amongst 
us. We cannot afford to forget him, or to leave his elo- 10 
quence and wisdom out of our mental feeding. For the 
same high lessons, the same sacred inspirations, are needed 
still \ as much so, perhaps, as when his patriotic ardor and 
his ponderous logic knocked the brains out of Nullification 
and Secession in the halls of Congress. For these reasons, 15 
and sundry others, I was heartily glad when, in 1879, a 
choice selection of his speeches, edited, and well edited 
too, by Mr. Edwin Percy Whipple of this city, was given 
to the public in a form much more accessible to the people 
generally than ever before. Surely the people of this nation 20 
cannot do a better thing for themselves and their children 
than to cherish the name and memory of Daniel Webster 
among their dearest household treasures ; and this not only 
as the fairest outcome of American genius and manhood, 
but as their wisest and most attractive teacher in all that is 25 
or should be nearest their hearts as citizens of this great 
and free Republic. 4 " 

As it is now nearly thirty years since Webster died, I 
may safely presume that many of you, perhaps most of you, 
never heard or saw him. I will therefore endeavor to give 30 
some personal description of the man. I saw him a great 



128 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

many times, and heard him repeatedly; and you may be 
sure my eyes and ears were seldom idle or wandering when 
they had him in view. He was indeed incomparably the 
finest looking, rather say the grandest looking, man I ever 
5 set eyes on. + I doubt whether, in personal appearance, his 
peer was to be found anywhere on the planet during his 
time ; and I can well accept as authentic the remark said 
to have been made by some one, that Daniel Webster must 
be a humbug, for no man could possibly be so great as he 

10 looked to be. In stature he was of medium height, about 
five feet and ten or eleven inches, I should say ; his form 
well proportioned, robust, and vigorous ; his frame close 
knit and firm set ; his step resolute and fearless ; his 
carriage erect and manly ; his presence dignified and 

15 impressive in the highest degree. His complexion was 
dark, insomuch that he is said in his early years to have 
been familiarly called " black Dan"; his hair a pure raven 
black, till time sprinkled it with snows. I am little booked 
in physiology, but I should say his temperament was bilious 

20 sanguineous, as Burke's appears to have been nervous san- 
guineous. His features were large and strong, but finely 
chiseled ; his neck thick and sinewy, — a fitting support 
for the magnificent dome poised upon it ; his chin promi- 
nent just to the point where firmness stops short of obsti- 

25 nacy ; his mouth calm and muscular ; his eyes big, dark, and 
blazing, — in his excited moments they literally seemed two 
globes of fire ; his forehead high, broad, projecting, and mas- 
sive, — a very cathedral indeed of thought ; and the whole 
suffused and harmonized with an air of majestic grace. 

30 So that the predominant expression of his face and head 
was that of immense power, but of power held perfectly in 
hand, and therefore sure to know its time. Hawthorne, in 



DANIEL WEBSTER 129 

his Marble Faun, has an expression so fine in itself and so 
apposite to Webster, that ever since my first reading of the 
book it has stuck to my memory in connection with him. 
Speaking of the celebrated bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius 
the Emperor, he says, "its very look is at once a command 5 
and a benediction." In his later years, Webster was often 
spoken of as " the godlike Daniel " ; and, sure enough, the 
heads that I have seen of old god Jupiter do not show an 
ampler dome or a more commanding outlook of intellectual 
majesty. Doubtless it was greatly owing to this expression 10 
of innate power which radiated from him, that even in his 
old age, when many minds were full of devouring thoughts 
about him, wherever he was present in person he was like 
Daniel in the lions' den : the lions might indeed growl 
behind their teeth, but they swallowed their rage, and dared 15 
not open their mouths to bite him. — Webster was a modest 
man ; everything about him was unaffected, genuine ; no 
assumption, no arrogance, no conceit : his dignity of man- 
ner, his greatness of look, were native to him ; and the im- 
pression his speaking always made upon me was such that I 20 
cannot better describe it than as follows : 

With grave 
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd 
A pillar of State ; deep on his front engraven 
Deliberation sat, and public care ; 25 

And princely counsel in his face did shine 
Majestic : . . . sage he stood 
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look 
Drew audience and attention still as night, 30 

Or Summer's noontide air. 

Webster's vast power of intellect is admitted by all : but 
it is not so generally known that he was as sweet as he was 



130 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

powerful, and nowhere more powerful than in his sweetness. 
When thoroughly aroused in public speech, there was indeed 
something terrible about him ; his huge burning eye seemed 
to bore a man through and through : but in his social hours, 
5 when his massive brow and features were lighted up with a 
characteristic smile, it was like a gleam of Paradise ; no 
person who once saw that full-souled smile of his could ever 
forget it. His goodly person, his gracious bearing, and his 
benignant courtesy made him the delight of every circle 

10 he entered : in the presence of ladies, especially, his great 
powers seemed to robe themselves spontaneously in beauty ; 
and his attentions were so delicate and so respectful, that 
they could not but be charmed. 

In the summer of 1839, Webster, with several members 

15 of his family, made a private visit to England ; and it is both 
pleasant and edifying to learn how he impressed the people 
there. 4 " Hallam, we are told, was " extremely struck by his 
appearance, deportment, and conversation." Carlyle pro- 
nounced him " a magnificent specimen"; adding, withal, that, 

20 " as a preliminary Hercules, one would incline to back him 
at first sight against all the extant world." Mr. John Kenyon 
traveled with him four days. Writing, in 1853, to Mr. George 
Ticknor, of Boston, he says that the acquaintance thus formed 
" enabled me to know and to love not only the great-brained, 

25 but large-hearted, genial man ; and this love I have held for 
him ever since, through good report and evil report ; and I 
shall retain this love for him to the day of my own depart- 
ure." Again, referring to some of Webster's playful sallies : 
" Fancy how delightful and how attaching I found all this 

30 genial bearing from so famous a man ; so affectionate, so 
little of a humbug. His greatness sat so easy and calm upon 
him ; he never had occasion to whip himself into a froth." 



DANIEL WEBSTER 131 

Before proceeding further, I must frankly admit certain 
drawbacks and exceptions in the character of my theme. 
For I have lived too long in this world to approve of every- 
thing that any man does, or to expect any man to approve 
of everything that I do. And I remember, also, the saying 5 
of a very wise author, that " the web of our life is of a 
mingled yarn, good and ill together : our virtues would 
be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our faults 
would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues." 
And so, to be sure, I have never known any man or woman i 
who seemed to me absolutely perfect, and I venture to 
doubt whether there be one such now in this room : I have 
indeed met several who thought or seemed to think them- 
selves so ; but in that case I always like to know what their 
neighbors think about it. At all events, Webster, like 15 
other men, certainly had his faults and imperfections ; and, 
amidst so much that was great and noble, candor may not 
permit the blemishes to be passed over in silence ; though 
I hope to keep ever in mind the saying of Burke, " He 
censures God, who quarrels with the imperfections of men." 20 
And even the faults which I find in Webster appear to me 
mainly, if not entirely, as things lying on the outside and 
surface of his character, not as entering into the heart and 
substance of it. 

In the first place, then; it is thought by many, and I 25 
am apt to think myself, that Webster sometimes got too 
nervously anxious to be President of the United States. A 
great authority tells us that " ambition is the last infirmity 
of noble minds." Webster undoubtedly had that infirmity 
in a high degree. As far back as 1834, he began to be 30 
talked of for the presidency ; and from that time onward 
his aspirations looked, probably with increasing strength, 



132 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

to that office. But I do not believe, and I challenge any- 
body to prove, that he ever did anything wrong, or any- 
thing mean, that he ever swerved a hair from his honest 
convictions of duty, in order to gain the office. Nor did 
5 he affect any indifference, or use any arts of conceal- 
ment, about it : all was frank, open, and aboveboard with 
him ; no intrigue, no playing at hide and seek, no political 
trickery, had roothold in his ambition. On this head, we 
may, with supreme fitness, apply to him what he himself 

10 said of Calhoun : " If he had aspirations, they were high 
and honorable and noble : there was nothing groveling or 
low or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart 
of Mr. Calhoun.' ' 

The truth is, Webster had early and honestly identified 

1 5 himself with what was then known as the Whig party against 
what was called the Jackson party. The latter had openly 
put forth as its motto, "To the victors belong the spoils " : 
but the Whig politicians soon became even more recklessly 
eager to act on this principle than their opponents were. 

20 Webster did not share with them at all in this passion ; he 
set his face against it utterly : and, though they wanted his 
help, and gloried in his leadership, they were still dissatis- 
fied with him because he would not "narrow his mind, 
and to party give up what was meant for mankind." He 

25 told the country again and again, that the spoils system, as 
it is called, would, if persisted in, " entirely change the 
character of our government. ,, We have been hearing a 
great deal lately, none too much though, about the cor- 
ruption and demoralization growing out of this abominable 

30 system. Well, Webster foresaw and foretold the whole evil 
and danger of it fifty years ago ; his most emphatic repro- 
bation of it being uttered in a speech at Worcester, on the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 33 

12th of October, 1832. But the thing was vastly popular 
then, and brought immense eclat and success to the authors 
of it. The politicians all went for it of course, and egged 
it on as a grand step of progress and reform ; for such men 
are always sure to be sailing with the wind, it being the 5 
height of their ambition to serve as weathercocks on the top 
of an edifice, exalted for their levity and versatility, so as to 
indicate each shifting of the popular gale. But Webster was 
quite another sort of man ; a man built high and strong in 
moral courage : and the great trouble with him was, that he 10 
was ever stemming some headlong current of popularity, and 
indeed " striding so far ahead of the time as to dwarf him- 
self by the distance." I could point out many instances 
where he planted himself square against the popular rush 
and clamor of the day. So he stood inexorably firm against 15 
the incorporation of Texas ; and he did this expressly on 
the ground, that he never would consent to add a single 
foot to the area of slavery. Here, again, the thing was 
hugely popular : and so even Northern Freesoilers, as they 
were then called, went for it, and it was carried by their 20 
votes ; Webster, meanwhile, solemnly forewarning them that 
it would one day shake the government to its foundations. 
And, sure enough, that one act was the seminal principle, 
the prolific germ, of our Civil War, with all its terrible, its 
unspeakable retributions. 25 

Though myself for many years among the stanchest of 
Whigs, yet I must now confess that the Whig party, as a 
whole, was a confoundedly mean party, — mean in its impo- 
tent craving for " the loaves and fishes," mean in its unblush- 
ing preference of success without merit to merit without 30 
success ; false to its professions, false to its leaders, false to 
itself. But it has ever been the curse of democracies to be 



134 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

infested with greedy demagogues, that is to say, with mere 
politicians, — probably the meanest and most noxious ani- 
mals on the planet. They will at all times eat any quantity 
of dirt to the people, to get the people's votes. This Web- 
5 ster never did, never would do. Accordingly he was in fact 
treated better by his political opponents than by his politi- 
cal associates. In 1836 the Whigs nominated Mr. Clay. 
This was a good nomination, and Webster sustained it 
heartily. Failing to elect Clay, the party then got badly 

10 smitten with the disease of " availability "; in other words, 
the Whig politicians were dying for the spoils. In the 
strength of that disease, they elected General Harrison in 
1840, and General Taylor in 1848 : but they failed to elect 
General Scott in 1852 ; whereupon the party died of that 

15 disease, as indeed it richly deserved to do. I have it on 
good authority, that, soon after the nomination of Scott, 
Webster, then struggling with his last sickness, said to his 
son Fletcher, " My son, never undertake to serve the Whig 
party; Sir, the Whig party cannot be served." 

20 I say we all know that Webster aspired to the presidency. 
Well, he had a right to aspire to the presidency ; he ought 
to have aspired to it ; he must have been either more or less 
than a man, not to have so aspired : for he could hardly 
help seeing, what everybody else saw, that he was generally 

25 thought to be altogether the fittest man in the country for 
that place. And here I am minded to relate a rather appo- 
site passage that occurred during the presidential campaign 
of 1852. The matter was told me by Mr. William Bates, (I 
think his name was William,) a prominent lawyer and an 

30 estimable gentleman, of Westfield, Massachusetts, long a per- 
sonal and political friend of Webster. It so happened that 
they met and rode together in a car. Their talk naturally 



DANIEL WEBSTER 135 

ran a good deal upon the political movements of the day. 
In the course of their talk, Mr. Bates said to Webster, 
" Well, Mr. Webster, I have thought a great deal on the sub- 
ject, and have often asked myself whether, after all, the 
presidency could do anything for you : and really, Mr. 5 
Webster, I doubt whether it could ; I am inclined to think 
you are quite as well without it." Webster replied : "To be 
frank with you, Mr. Bates, the same question has occurred 
to me. And perhaps it is as you say ; perhaps I am just as 
well without that office. But, Sir, it is a great office ; why, 10 
Mr. Bates, it is the greatest office in the world : and I am 
but a man, Sir; I want it, I want it." Now, if there be any 
man who thinks a jot the worse of Daniel Webster for all 
this, I confess I would a little rather not ride in the same 
coach with that man. 15 

Webster did not rise to that office, or rather the office did 
not rise to him : it could have added no honor to him ; he 
would have added much honor to it. In truth, as matters 
then stood, he was too great for the place, or rather he was 
a greater man than the politicians thought it for their interest 20 
to have there. For our politicians, to be sure, like to have 
their pockets well filled, or their ships well ballasted, with the 
office patronage of the government ; and so they of course 
prefer to see the presidency held by a putty-head or a dough- 
face; that is to say, a man whom they can work and wind 25 
and manage. Webster felt the event deeply, indeed, too 
deeply. And what I rather regret than censure in him is, that 
he did not view the result with that calmness, that philoso- 
phy, which the world had a right to expect from so great a 
man ; that he allowed himself to be grieved and worried by 30 
the disappointment more than in reason he ought. Doubt- 
less his grief was the deeper, because he was conscious of 



136 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

having served his country faithfully and well ; for the sense of 
such injustice joined with such ingratitude cuts to the quick : 
but he should have stayed his lion-hearted manhood on the 
fact, notorious in all ages, that politicians, in their miserable 
5 shortsightedness, will at any time sacrifice their best friends 
in the vain hope of gaining support from their opponents. 

In the second place, Webster was something too loose in 
his money matters. Though second to none of our states- 
men as a financier for the public, he allowed his own private 

10 finances to be much disordered ; was too careless of incurring 
debts, not careful enough of paying them. This I reckon a 
greater fault than the former : in that, he only wronged him- 
self; in this, he did wrong to others. Of course nobody 
can suppose he meant to keep from others their dues ; but 

15 this is not quite enough. Probably the right explanation is, 
that he had his big head swarming with big thoughts, and so 
was oblivious in this point. 

A little incident has come to my knowledge, which may 
here illustrate his character. I have been told that, on some 

20 occasion, Mr. Seaton, one of the editors of The National 
Intelligencer, called on Webster in Washington, and had a 
talk with him. During their interview, a beggar man came 
into the room, and solicited an alms. Webster, without 
pausing in his talk, thrust his fingers into his vest pocket, 

25 pulled out a bill, and handed it to the man, who then went 
out. When the talk came to a pause, Mr. Seaton asked 
Webster if he knew what he had given to that beggar 
man. " Beggar man? " said Webster ; " what beggar man? " 
"Why," said Mr. Seaton, " the one who came in just now, 

30 while you were talking." " O yes/' said Webster, " it seems 
to me I do remember something about it. Well, what did I 
give him?" "A hundred-dollar bill," said Mr. Seaton. 



DANIEL WEBSTER I 37 

Now, a man may have a right, though even that is doubt- 
ful, to be oblivious of what is due in this kind from others to 
himself ; but no one has a right to be oblivious of what is 
due from himself to others. True, Webster was as far as 
possible from being either stingy or grasping. If prodigal 5 
of his own means, he was nowise greedy of other men's. 
Neither did he ever use, or abuse, his place in the govern- 
ment to the ends of self-enrichment. Herein it may well be 
wished that more of our present national lawmakers were 
guilty of his worst fault : in that case, I suspect their patri- 10 
otic toils would not prove quite so remunerative as they often 
do. Webster, indeed, cared nothing for money, while at the 
same time he had " a tear for pity, and a hand open as day 
for melting charity " ; and whatever cash he at any time had 
in his purse ran away as freely as w r ater, whether in payment 15 
of debts or in relief to the needy. I am only sorry he was 
not more mindful to be just before being generous either to 
others or to himself. 

But then it is to be borne in mind, that, in giving himself 
up to the public service, he was obliged to relinquish the 20 
greater part of a large professional income. After being 
twice elected to Congress in his native State, he removed 
from Portsmouth to Boston in 181 7, where he forthwith 
entered upon a career of great professional distinction, and 
his legal practice soon rose to the amount of twenty thousand 25 
dollars a year ; which was a prodigious income for a lawyer in 
those times. The good people of Boston repeatedly urged 
him to let himself be nominated for Congress, which he 
repeatedly declined, chiefly on the ground that he could not 
afford it. At length, in 1823, they may be said to have 30 
forced the nomination upon him : he reluctantly yielded, 
and was elected. After serving through one Congress, he 



138 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

was elected again in 1825, having 4990 votes out of 5000. 
Now, our national legislators at that time were paid only eight 
dollars a day, and this only during the actual session of Con- 
gress. No wonder Webster held back from such a curtail- 
5 ment of his means. For he was by nature free, generous, 
and magnificent in his dispositions. Later in life, his vast 
reputation, the dignity and elegance of his manners, the 
engaging suavity and affability of his conversation, in a word, 
the powerful magnetism of the man, drew a great deal of 

10 high company round him, and necessarily made his expenses 
large. Then too all the money in the country could not 
measure the worth of his services. Still it would have been 
better for his peace of mind, and would have saved a deal 
of ugly scandal, if he had kept strictly within the small 

15 returns which his great public services brought in to him. 

It is but just to add that in his closing years his mind 

became very uneasy on this account. In the spring of 1852, 

he being then in President Fillmore's cabinet, a fee of 

$ 1 5 ,000 was offered him by Goodyear & Company to engage 

20 his services in their great India-rubber case. He wanted the 
fee, but was very loath to undertake the case, as it seemed to 
him hardly becoming for one in his position to do so. His 
friends, however, the President among them, strongly advised 
him to accept the offer : so he argued and won the case. 

25 He is said to have expressed a wish for one more such fee, 

as this would discharge his debts, and make him a free man. 

Touching this matter, certain people are wont to speak 

of Webster as if no other great man had ever run into 

like embarrassments. Now, Charles Watson Wentworth, the 

30 celebrated Marquis of Rockingham, died in 1782, while 
he was Prime Minister. The day before his death, he gave 
special directions to have a codicil added to his will, 



DANIEL WEBSTER 139 

canceling all acknowledgments of debt due to him from his 
" admirable friend, Edmund Burke." The amount of Burke's 
indebtedness to his lordship is not precisely known ; but it 
is said to have been not less than ^30,000. As money was 
then probably worth twice as much as in Webster's time, 5 
this would make a sum nearly equivalent to $300,000 in our 
reckoning. But Rockingham's mind was framed in such 
nobility of justice, that he seemed to think himself only hon- 
ored by such munificence to the transcendent statesman of 
his age ; whose services, however, to his country had not, up 10 
to that time, come anywhere near those rendered to this 
nation by Webster. But both these great men were alike 
drawn away from living for themselves, and from work that 
pays, to a course of living and working for mankind, — a 
sendee that commonly has to be its own reward. 15 

Webster's service to the country was fully commensurate 
with his greatness as a man. It may well be questioned, 
indeed, whether even Washington himself did the nation 
greater service than he : for without our American Union 
the achievement of our American independence could hardly 20 
have proved a blessing. And so I think the history shows 
us that, during the interval from the Revolution to the Con- 
stitution, the States were not nearly so well off as they had 
been under the British rule. That rule was of course 
imperial ; and such, in substance and effect, is the rule of 25 
our national government now. And, surely, some such para- 
mount and inclusive authority was and ever must be need- 
ful in order to keep peace between the States; otherwise 
it were hardly possible to prevent a chronic antagonism and 
bloody quarrels from springing up amongst them. There 30 
seems to be, indeed, for the American people, no middle 



140 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

or tenable ground between the government of our present 
National Union and that state of things, at once horrible and 
contemptible, which we call Mexicanism ; and, rather than 
the nation should become Mexicanized, it were far better 

5 that the whole land, with all the people on it, should be 
sunk in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. 

Be this as it may, with Webster, love of that Union, 
ingenerate in his nature, and cherished by his education, had 
grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. 

io He was elected to the National Senate in 1827. Early in 
his senatorial career he saw that certain causes or forces 
were working deeply and silently, and therefore the more 
dangerously, to bring about a rupture of that Union. He 
also saw that, if the structure of our National State were once 

15 demolished, it could never be rebuilt. He also saw that, 
for preventing this, two things were needful : first, that the 
people needed to have their minds rightly and thoroughly 
informed in the nature and principles of our Constitution ; 
second, that they needed to have their hearts inspired 

20 with a deep, earnest, heroic passion of nationality, with an 
ardent, self-sacrificing devotion to the Union, as it was. 

Thus his eye took in the whole situation, his mighty grasp 
of thought surrounded the entire question. He therefore 
set himself, with all his powers of mind and body, to the 

25 work, and never ceased till the work was done. For more 
than twenty years, it was the main burden of all his thought 
and all his discourse. He was a great lawyer, and he knew the 
law : he was a great orator, and could speak what he knew ; 
he was a great statesman, with his mind thoroughly at home 

30 in the creative and controlling forces of social, civil, and 
political well-being : therewithal he had that indispensable 
element of all high statesmanship, a large, warm, tender 



DANIEL WEBSTER 141 

heart : and in the strength of this combination he saw and 
felt that the preservation of our National Union was the one 
thing needful above all others to the welfare of the American 
people. So, in due time, he just educated and kindled the 
people up to his own height, filling their minds with his 5 
thoughts, their hearts with his fervor, their mouths with 
his words. In doing this, he won the title of the great 
Expounder and the great Defender of the American Consti- 
tution, and surely no title was ever better deserved. On the 
26th of January, 1830, he met the great champion of South- 10 
ern Nullification in the Senate, wrestled with him, threw 
him, and broke every bone in his body. I think I may 
safely affirm that this reply to Hayne produced a greater 
effect than any other speech ever delivered in the world; 
excepting, of course, those recorded in the Bible. Speeches 15 
greater in themselves have indeed been made : Webster him- 
self has several that are greater; and some of Burke's, I 
suspect, are greater than any of his ; but no one of Burke's, 
nor any other of Webster's, came up to that in effectiveness. 
This was greatly owing to the peculiar circumstances of the 20 
time, and the state of the public mind. The tide of dis- 
union sentiment was then setting in fast and strong ; men's 
minds were becoming deeply excited and agitated with 
doubts and misgivings ; on all hands, the worth and stability 
of the Union were drawn in question : Webster turned that 25 
tide completely, and it has gone on ebbing ever since : in 
short, that speech made, and marks, the beginning of a 
new era in our national life : from that time forward, other 
thoughts and other feelings took fast roothold in the minds 
and hearts of the people. 30 

Mr. Hayne was a superb man, able, eloquent, honorable, 
high souled. Not long after Webster's speech, he withdrew 



142 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

from the Senate, and was replaced by a much greater cham- 
pion of the same cause, who, meanwhile, had resigned the 
office of Vice-President for that very purpose. When the 
question came up again, Mr. Calhoun waited till most of 
5 the Senators on the other side had said the best they could 
for the Union ; he then took the floor, and in a rapture of 
logic tore their arguments all to shreds, and sent them flying 
like straws in a tempest. Then came Webster's turn. So, on 
the 1 6th of February, 1833, he took the floor, and just drove 

10 a huge wedge of adamantine logic right through the center 
of Calhoun's masterly argument, splitting it clean asunder 
from end to end. Nullification was now fairly pounded to a 
jelly, nor was it ever after able to resume the form of bone 
and muscle in Congress. Then and there it was that the 

15 real battles of the Union were fought and won. For the 
cause had to be tried in the courts of legislative reason before 
it could come to trial in the field of battle ; nor, in all human 
probability, would it ever have triumphed in the latter, if its 
right so to triumph had not first been made good in the 

20 former : and that this right was there and thus made good, 
was mainly owing, under God, to the Herculean intellect, the 
mighty eloquence, the great soul, the generous and compre- 
hensive wisdom of Daniel Webster. 

Of course we all understand that slavery was at the bottom 

25 of this whole business. Other causes were indeed often 
alleged, but this was only a disguise, and probably deceived 
nobody. Now, Webster hated slavery much, and on all 
proper occasions he was downright and outspoken in his 
aversion to it. He thought it a great moral, social, and 

30 political evil, a consuming cancer, the immedicabile vulnus 
of the social body; and he often so declared himself. He 
also saw, what I suppose we all see now, that there was no 



DANIEL WEBSTER 143 

power in the country which could kill slavery but the national 
government, and that the national government could do this 
only in the exercise of its military power, and in a case of 
actual war, — civil war ; and this was a remedy which, vastly 
to his credit, he could not bear to think of. 5 

I believe — I hope you all believe — that love is, in gen- 
eral, if not universally, a higher, better, stronger force than 
hate. I also hold, — do not you ? — that love of that which 
is good is a better and stronger principle than hatred of that 
which is bad ; though I have nothing to say against hatred 10 
of what is bad. I have said that Webster hated slavery 
much : he did so, his whole life proves it ; but he loved the 
Union more, yes, a good deal more, than he hated slavery. 
He believed slavery to be bad ; he believed the Union to be 
good. That love was, indeed, all through his public life, a 15 
passion with him ; nay, more, it was the master passion of 
his soul : it had penetrated every fiber of his being. To his 
eye, " Earth had not anything to show more fair " than the 
august and beautiful fabric of our National State. That this 
mighty structure, this masterpiece of political architecture, 20 
should be laid in the dust, was too much for him : the very 
thought of it literally wrung his heart with anguish. His 
supreme desire was, to have the Union so strengthened, so 
established in the minds and hearts of the people, so bound 
up, so interwoven with their dearest household ties and 25 
affections, that neither slavery nor any other power should 
be able to prevail against it. 

Now, there was a considerable and a growing class of peo- 
ple at the North who got so possessed with an all-absorbing, 
all-consuming hatred of slavery, that they went to hating the 30 
Union on slavery's account : on all hands their orators were 
denouncing the Constitution as "a covenant with Hell"; 



144 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

were openly avowing the wish, nay, the purpose, of having 
it exploded ; and their burning words were threatening to 
kindle such a fire as would burn it down. Even Washing- 
ton himself also, and others who had the strongest claims to 
5 gratitude and veneration as the founders and benefactors 
of our Republic, were daily dragged forth by them, to be 
roasted in the fires, or tortured on the racks of detraction 
and defamation ; like men desecrating the sepulchers and 
exhuming the bones of their fathers, in order to gibbet them 

io before the world. At the same time, there was a consider- 
able and a growing class of people at the South, who got 
so possessed with an all-absorbing, all-consuming love of 
slavery, that they also went to hating the Union for slavery's 
sake, and openly embarked in a crusade for breaking it up. 

15 Though the spirit of disunion had been thrashed out of 
the ugly form of Nullification, still it was not dead ; and it 
soon after reappeared in the garb of a very gentle, harmless, 
smiling lady named Peaceable Secession. Thus the extrem- 
ists of both sections, the extreme haters of slavery at the 

20 North, and the extreme lovers of slavery at the South, were 
practically leagued together in a common cause, conjointly 
aiming to break up the Union, to demolish the fabric of 
our National State, at once the fortress and the temple of 
American freedom; though, to be sure, they were doing 

25 this from opposite motives, the former to destroy slavery, 
the latter to perpetuate it. Divided in their ultimate aims, 
they were nevertheless united in their present purpose. And 
the war of words between them kept waxing hotter and 
hotter year after year. 

30 At length, in 1850, the thing was visibly growing to a head. 
Webster saw — at least he believed — that the South were 
in dead earnest, that they had worked themselves up to the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 145 

full bent, and were really of a mind to do what they were 
threatening, come what might. He also saw that the con- 
troversies then raging between the North and the South, 
unless they could be allayed, must soon culminate in seces- 
sion and civil war. The South were talking oi peaceable 5 
secession. Webster knew that secession would not, could 
not, be peaceable. So, in his speech on the 7th of March, 
fixing his big, blazing eyes full on the Southern members, he 
spoke these words: "Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes 
and mine are never destined to see that miracle. Who is so 10 
foolish — I beg everybody's pardon — as to expect to see 
any such thing? There can be no such thing as a peaceable 
secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is 
the great Constitution under which we live, covering this 
whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by seces- 15 
sion, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence 
of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? 
No, Sir ! No, Sir ! I will not state what might produce 
the disruption of the Union ; but I see, as plainly as I see 
the sun in heaven, what that disruption itself must produce : 20 
I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not 
describe, in its twofold character" The words twofold 
character were a hint, if they would but take it, that in such 
a war the beloved slavery they were fighting for would prove 
an ugly thorn in their side. 25 

Now, for the prevention, or, if this might not be, for the 
postponement, of such an issue, Webster felt that every dan- 
ger must be braved, every exertion made, every sacrifice 
incurred. For these reasons, he put forth his whole strength 
in favor of the Compromise Measures of 1850. He well 30 
knew the risk he was running ; but, in his judgment, the 
occasion called on him, imperatively, to stand to the work. 



146 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

His language to a private friend was, " It seemed to me that 
the country demanded the sacrifice of a human victim, and 
I saw no reason why I should not be the victim myself.' ' 
So, in the last hope of saving his cause, he deliberately 
5 staked his all. He himself went down indeed, but the 
cause was saved. In all this, most assuredly, he was right, 
nobly right, heroically right. And his whole action at 
that time proved him to be as great morally as he was 
intellectually. 

10 In another speech, on the 1 7 th of July, — the last he ever 
made in the Senate, — he closed with the following : " For 
myself, I propose, Sir, to abide by the principles and the 
purposes which I have avowed. I shall stand by the Union, 
and by all who stand by it. I shall do justice to the whole 

1 5 country, according to the best of my ability, in all I say, and 
act for the good of the whole country in all I do. I mean 
to stand upon the Constitution. I need no other platform. 
The ends I aim at shall be my country's, my God's, and 
Truth's. I was born an American ; I will live an American ; 

20 I shall die an American ; and I intend to perform the duties 
incumbent upon me in that character to the end of my 
career. I mean to do this with absolute disregard of per- 
sonal consequences. What are personal consequences? 
What is the individual man,- with all the good or evil that 

25 may betide him, in comparison with the good or evil which 
may befall a great country in a crisis like this? Let the 
consequences be w r hat they may, I am careless. No man 
can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he 
suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and Constitution 

30 of his country." These words, I confess, have to me a very 
solemn and pathetic interest, as the last ever spoken by our 
incomparable Senator in that capacity. 



DANIEL WEBSTER 147 

The Compromise Measures were at last carried; and it is 
admitted by all that they could not have been carried with- 
out Webster's powerful aid. Thus the explosion, then so 
imminent, was postponed. Ten years of time were thereby 
gained. It is not too much to say that this gaining of time 5 
saved the Union : for we may well shudder to think of what, 
in all probability, would have been the result, had the explo- 
sion come on in 1851, instead of 186 1. At the former 
period, we had a divided North and a united South. Dur- 
ing the interval, the hideous doings in Kansas took place ; 10 
which so disgusted and alienated the Northern people, that 
we then had, for the first time, the golden prospect of a 
divided South and a united North. 

Webster's course touching the Compromise Measures 
drew upon him a perfect tempest of obloquy and abuse 15 
both North and South. My father-in-law, the late Mr. 
Henry Bright, of Northampton, a very clear-headed and 
just-thinking man, was in Mobile on private business at the 
time when Webster's speech of the 7th of March reached 
that city. He told me that the " fire-eaters " there were 20 
seized with such an inexpressible rage against Webster, that 
he really believed, if they could have got hold of him, they 
would have chopped him all to pieces. At the same time, 
and for the same cause, the extremists at the North went 
with equal fury to butchering his character, — a sort of 25 
butchery not very much better, perhaps, than the other. I 
have no language to describe the shocking bitterness and 
virulence with which his name was vilified and hunted down 
here in New England. Why, the moral and social atmos- 
phere of Boston is still sick with the abominable venom 30 
spouted against him here by certain liberal preachers and 
lecturers. For I suppose we all know that the most illiberal 



148 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

and venom-mouthed men in the world are often found among 
those who make special professions of liberality, and greatly 
pride themselves thereon ; men who insist on being them- 
selves perfectly free to think and speak their own thoughts, 
5 and on having all others perfectly free to think and speak 
just as they do. For we are to note that the words liberty 
and liberality are of kindred origin and meaning : and what 
is the use of our having liberty, if we be not, ipso facto, free 
to traduce and begnaw and blacken all who are so de- 

10 praved as not to accept our judgment for their own? Now, 
for my part, I wish to be liberal even towards illiberality 
itself; yet must confess I sometimes find this rather diffi- 
cult. The truth of the matter, as nearly as I can understand 
it, runs about thus : The men in question had conceived 

15 a bitter hatred of the Union \ Webster had thoroughly iden- 
tified himself with the Union : so they just transferred their 
hatred of the Union to him; + for such men always take 
more pleasure in hating a person than a thing ; and this, I 
suppose, partly because a person naturally has sensibilities 

20 that may be hurt, which a thing has not : they were labor- 
ing with all their might to destroy the Union; Webster had 
saved the Union; and now they were possessed with an 
intense longing to destroy him. It may almost be said 
indeed that they did destroy him : at least their envenomed 

25 calumnies greatly embittered his closing years, and sent 
him sorrowing to his grave. But they did not destroy his 
work : the Union was saved. In all this we have a memor- 
able instance of what fanaticism can do, especially when 
actuated by a sort of philanthropic ferocity. Nor has the 

30 spirit engendered by those proceedings fully died out 
yet : even to this day it is hardly safe for a man to speak 
an honest plain word in defense of this part of Webster's 



DANIEL WEBSTER 149 

life, lest popular odium should pelt him with mud or some- 
thing worse. 

Now, during all those years I was myself a most cordial 
hater of slavery; though I never went to the extreme — God 
forbid ! — of hating either the Union or Webster : for how 5 
hatred of these could do anything towards pulling slavery 
down, was quite beyond me. Nor was I ever able to com- 
prehend why the Abolitionists should make it an exercise of 
religion, as they did, to go about cursing and reviling all that 
was greatest and best in the work of our national fathers : it 10 
seemed to me then, as it seems to me now, an aggravated 
revival of that old mystery, the odium theologicum ; that is to 
say, the offspring of sheer fanaticism, and a very malignant 
fanaticism too ; the selfsame spirit that has more than once 
set men to cutting throats in the name of liberty and phi- 15 
lanthropy. 

As for the speech of the 7 th of March, for which Webster 
was so bitterly, so atrociously maligned, I have read that 
speech a great many times, and I do not know of a single 
word in it that I would have otherwise than as it is. I think it 20 
every way just such a speech as should have been made at 
that time by a great man, who had a great Union to save, 
and a great civil war to avert.* Nor could Webster have con- 
sistently taken any other course : he would have belied his 
whole record, he would have been recreant to the sovereign 25 
aim of his life, if, in that great national crisis, he had not 
thrown all other regards to the winds, and made the Union 
his paramount, nay, his exclusive concern. So, there again, 
though, to be sure, with his great heart quivering and bleed- 
ing at the defection of friends, and the cruel, cruel aspersions 30 
of those whom he had loved so deeply and served so de- 
votedly, he stood firm as a rock against the surging and 



150 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

dashing waves of unpopularity in his own cherished home. 
Seeing the peril as he saw it, he must needs have braved 
popular clamor as he braved it, else he would have ceased 
to be Daniel Webster. So that Massachusetts went back on 
5 him, or froze off from him, just at the very time when he was 
worthiest of her love and honor. But then we all ought to 
know that, in all cases, the blind or the blear-eyed many 
are pretty sure to denounce and defame the one who sees. 
When, in 1830 and 1833, Webster encountered Nullification 

10 in debate, and strangled it in the crushing anaconda folds of 
his logic and eloquence, he appeared great indeed, and was 
great ; though he then had all New England and most of the 
entire North backing him up and cheering him on. But a 
great man never appears so great as when he stands true to 

15 himself and his cause, with all the world against him. And 
so, to my thinking, at no other time of his life did Webster's 
stubborn greatness of soul, his " colossal manhood, " tower 
up in such monumental grandeur as when, in 1850, he stood 
true to himself, " unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, ,, with all 

20 New England and most of the entire North banded together 
to pelt him off and hiss him down. 

The fineness of such metal is not found 
In Fortune's love ; for them the bold and coward, 
The hard and soft, seem all affined and kin : 
25 But, in the wind and tempest of her frown, 

Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, 
Puffing at all, winnows the light away ; 
And what hath mass and matter, by itself 
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled. 

30 Webster had foreseen and foretold a whirlwind of civil 
war as the inevitable consequence of the wind which the an- 
tagonist extremists were sowing. Both parties alike laughed 



DANIEL WEBSTER 151 

him to scorn ; they derided his fears, they despised his 
warnings ; could not speak of them save as themes of scoff- 
ing and ridicule ; saying that they were the mere offspring 
of his inordinate ambition ; that he had turned prophet 
merely because he wanted to be President. Nor did they 5 
give over this work when the great man died : they even 
made his death a crime ; alleging that he had died of dis- 
appointed ambition and from the effects of personal vices ; 
just as if a man at the age of three-score and ten had not 
a right to die ! Now, Webster, I take it, was at least not a 10 
fool, not absolutely a fool. Nor was he so little read in the 
book of human nature and human life as not to know that 
the course he was taking could not possibly gain him any- 
thing at the South, while it was sure to lose him much at 
the North. Any man with but half an eye could not fail 15 
to see that. And Webster himself had plainly declared it 
in a passage I have already cited. Strange, strange indeed, 
what absurd reasons even good men will sometimes stick 
upon, for thinking that a man cannot possibly differ from 
them in opinion, unless he have a bad heart! 20 

So, in the instance before us, the treatment Webster re- 
ceived proceeded, apparently, upon the rather odd notion, 
that, in the political questions of the time, he was just the 
last man in the country who ought to be allowed to have 
a mind of his own. A great many people in Massachusetts, 25 
it seems, could nowise conceive on what ground, or by what 
right, he should presume to have a mind larger than their 
own State, or, at all events, larger than their own section. 
That his heart dared to be big enough to embrace the whole 
United States, and to be satisfied with nothing less, and that 30 
his moral manhood spread so wide, and stood so firm, as 
to be unflinchingly steadfast to the integrity of the Union, — 



152 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

this was, in the eye of Massachusetts, an unpardonable sin : 
she could not forgive it then, she has not forgiven it now. 
But, assuredly, Webster's great soul will sooner or later be 
found to have been greater than she, and will prove too 
5 strong for her yet. For, indeed, he was not her man ; he 
was emphatically the nation's man : and, though he loved 
her deeply, yet he would not budge an inch from his life- 
long purpose as an American, to gratify her sectional nar- 
rowness, or her war-kindling philanthropy. 

10 How he thought and felt touching this whole matter, is 
perhaps best shown in a speech made at Buffalo on the 2 2d 
of May, 185 1. Of course he is referring to his line of action 
in 1850 : " I am an American. I was made a whole man, 
and I did not mean to make myself half a one. I felt that 

15 I had a duty to perform to my country, to my own reputa- 
tion ; for I flattered myself that a service of forty years had 
given me some character, on which I had a right to repose 
for my justification in the performance of a duty attended 
with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it was 

20 my duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was 
to be the consequence. I felt it was my duty, in a very 
alarming crisis, to come out ; to go for my country, and my 
whole country ; and to exert any power I had, to keep that 
country together. I cared for nothing, I was afraid of noth- 

25 ing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes 
a man happy ; duty neglected makes a man unhappy. I 
therefore, in the face of all discouragements and all dangers, 
was ready to go forth and do what I thought my country, 
your country, demanded of me. And, Gentlemen, allow me 

30 to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared 
me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the 
fagots already crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 53 

would have gone on and discharged the duty which I thought 
my country called upon me to perform." 

I think very highly of our Mr. Whittier both as a poet and 
as a man. I hold him to be a man of real genius, and of an 
altogether honorable and lovable character. But he has 5 
one little piece that I am sorry for. It was written in 1850, 
and is entitled Ichabod^ I cannot see that it has any great 
merit as poetry ; and I see, or seem to see, in it not a little 
fault of uncharitableness : nay, I must go further, — the 
uncharity of it is simply atrocious. Now, I do not believe 10 
there is or can be an honester man than Mr. Whittier ; but 
I hold Webster to have been every whit as honest as he, and 
at the same time a thousandfold wiser and vastly more chari- 
table. It is no business of mine, nor do I propose to make 
it my business ; but, if I were an intimate friend of Mr. 15 
Whittier, I should be very earnest with him to recall and 
suppress that poem. It is not worthy of him. But, whether 
he did so or not, I should still continue to honor him all the 
same, notwithstanding. It is nowise likely that I shall ever 
give a lecture upon him ; if, however, I were to do so, I am 20 
afraid I should have to note this as a greater fault in him 
than any I am able to find in Webster. 

It is but fair to add, indeed it would be hardly fair not to 
add, that Mr. Whittier has lately put forth another poem, in 
which he makes some considerable amends for the piece of 25 
1850. This is entitled The Lost Occasion, and w T as pub- 
lished in The Atlantic Monthly for April, 1880 ; not known 
to me, however, when the foregoing strictures were written. + 
In his later piece, the author thinks that, if Webster had 
lived ten years longer, he would have been " disillusioned." 30 
Webster disillusioned ! Disillusioned of what? Why, his 
presentiments, his predictions, all his worst forebodings, 



154 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

were justified, and more than justified, by the event. Was 
his prevision of civil war an illusion ? Nay, the horrors and 
agonies of that war altogether outstripped the utmost that 
even he had strength to apprehend. Truly, one would think 
5 that Mr. Whittier, and not Webster, was the man to be dis- 
illusioned. Potent, potent indeed must have been the spell 
which, in so fair a mind, those four dreadful years of civil 
carnage could not break ! 

In the earlier piece, at all events, Mr. Whittier prophesied 

io an untrue thing, — for Webster's glory has not departed ; — 
is it not a glorious thing to be enrolled by wise old Harvard 
as one of the seven great orators of the world ? — in that 
case at least, I say, Mr. Whittier prophesied an untrue thing, 
— and he was believed ; Webster prophesied a true thing, 

15 and he was not believed: for, indeed, " his was the wise 
man's ordinary lot, to prophesy to ears that would not hear." 
But Massachusetts had then outgrown Webster, — so far 
outgrown him as . to prefer one Horace Mann, who was 
among the loudest in rancorous invective against him. So, 

20 to shame Webster into her wisdom, her honorable Legisla- 
ture had a statue of the said Horace Mann set up in front 
of the Capitol, and there it stands now. (By the way, I wish 
the friends of Webster would, some Sunday night when the 
moon is shining, reverently take his statue out of that inclo- 

25 sure, and put it in some humbler place. For, surely, Webster 
is not worthy to stand there in such high company ; no, he 
is not worthy of that !) And Massachusetts has kept on 
growing since : why, she has grown almost to the bigness 
of General Butler ! She has not indeed quite overtaken his 

30 stature yet ; but perhaps she will erelong, for she is still 
growing. Yet no ! I doubt whether she will ever grow big 
enough for him, — big enough either to swallow him or be 



DANIEL WEBSTER 155 

swallowed by him ; though, to be sure, he is the owner, or 
the tenant in fee, of "an unbounded stomach." 

Well, when at length Webster's predictions began to 
come true ; when Secession stood forth an actual fact, a 
presence that could not be put by, the political leaders of 5 
the Northern extremists, both in and out of Congress, were 
utterly aghast, as indeed they well might be, at the final 
outcome of their doings. They had, by their incantations, 
raised, or helped to raise, something that looked very like 
the Devil ; and now the one all-engrossing thought was how 10 
to get rid of it. They had not believed the South were really 
in earnest, and they had imputed Webster's belief of it to 
bad motives. But there the thing was at last ; and what 
could be done with it? that was the question. So they put 
their heads together, and made a formal proposition to the 15 
Southern leaders, solemnly pledging themselves to use all 
their efforts to carry through such an amendment of the 
Constitution as would secure slavery absolutely and forever 
against all interference by the general government. The 
Southern leaders, in the misplaced pride of their hearts, 20 
spurned away the proposition, and laughed at the makers 
of it. They had got their heads very high. 

The extremists of both sections had at first hated Webster 
because they did not understand him, and had wronged him 
because they hated him ; and now they kept on hating 25 
him because they had wronged him. He had forewarned 
them of a particular mischief as the sure result of the course 
they were taking ; they had despised his counsels, and 
ascribed them to an evil mind : and when his forecast 
became a fact, instead of relenting towards him, they even 39 
hated him worse than ever ; the very thought of him stung 
them with self-reproach ; and they sought to avenge upon 



156 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

him the mischief they had brought upon themselves, and 
went to accusing him as the author of what he had foretold. 
So, within the last few years, I have repeatedly found men 
seriously holding Webster responsible for our Civil War ! 
5 Such is human nature ; and so, in all ages, have men been 
wont to recompense their greatest benefactors ! But wis- 
dom not the less, though late, is sure to be justified of her 
children. And so, assuredly, it will be with Webster. 

At the time I am referring to, Webster's body had been 

10 in the grave nearly eight years and a half ; but his spirit, 
though slumbering, was still alive, and would not die. His 
words were on the lips and in the hearts of the people from 
Maine to California. Mark, then, how " the whirligig of 
time brought in his revenges." When at length the attack 

15 on Fort Sumter rang all through the land like an omni- 
present clap of thunder, then it was that Webster's spirit 
awoke as from the dead. This time, the South had raised 
a spirit, not indeed so hideous as the one I mentioned 
before, but a great deal more terrible. That spirit was — 

20 love of the Union. And whose spirit was that but Webster's? 
How gloriously it made the people of the North spring to 
arms ! Yes, the great soul of Daniel Webster breathing and 
beating in them, — this it was that set them astir, impelling 
them to the front, and holding them to the work, till Seces- 

25 sion was finally overwhelmed beneath a wide-sweeping tor- 
rent of blood and fire ! + 

Now, that war cost the North not less than eight hundred 
thousand lives and six thousand millions of money ! Per- 
haps the demoralization engendered out of it should be rated 

30 as a still greater cost : the nation has not got over it yet, 
nor will it for fifty years to come. But, in the conflict which 
itself had provoked, slavery fell, and great was the fall 



DANIEL WEBSTER 1 57 

thereof. Gloria in excelsis for that fall ! For slavery was 
a loathsome and execrable old nuisance ; I thought so then, 
I think so now : and the only good thing it could possibly 
do was to die. I admit, indeed, that the purchase was 
worth the cost ; but it was a dreadful, dreadful price to 5 
pay, even for so auspicious a riddance as that ! 

Of course, if the extremists, those who got up the war, had 
foreseen what was coming, the thing would not have come ; 
at least it would not have come when it did. Yet, surely, it 
was bound to come, sooner or later ; it was only a question 10 
of time. But, thanks to Daniel Webster, the war was ad- 
journed till, as the event proved, the nation was duly pre- 
pared for it, though not so prepared but that it was deeply 
punished in and by it. Nor did it escape his " large dis- 
course " that the crisis, after all, was but postponed : I have 15 
been told that in his private intercourse he expressed it as 
his settled conviction that such was the case. But, surely, 
Providence had a controlling hand in the whole matter \ and 
Providence knows its time, as it also knows how to make a 
good use of the blunders of men. Now, those who had no 20 
foresight of what was coming may stand acquitted of crime, 
though not of blundering : yet I cannot say this for their 
huge unbenevolence towards their best friend : ignorance 
may be pardoned, malice may not. But, as Webster had a 
forecast of the whole, he was bound on every principle of 25 
humanity and of manhood to act as he did : nay, he would 
have been utterly inexcusable both as a statesman and as a 
man, if he had acted otherwise. 

But why was it that slavery had to fall ? Here I may claim 
some right to know what I am saying, because I had ocular 30 
and auricular proof on the subject. For I was myself in the 
army three years, serving the cause with such poor abilities 



158 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

as I had. And I was perfectly satisfied from the outset, that 
either slavery or the nation was bound to perish : I felt just 
as sure of it then as I do now. In the summer of 1861, I 
was living in the city of New York. Seeing in the papers 
5 one morning a notice of a meeting to be held in Hope 
Chapel for the purpose of helping on the war, I took a notion 
to go to it. Being there, I felt moved to make a speech. 
Having gained the ear of the audience, almost before I knew 
what I was saying, these words popped out of my mouth : 

10 " Slavery has now forced itself into a mortal duel with Uncle 
Sam, and one of them has got to die ; and, so far as I am 
concerned, it shall not be Uncle Sam." At first, I was 
startled with the apprehension of having gone too far ; but, 
the audience raising a shout of applause, I saw that things 

15 were all right, and so went on. 

Carrying, as I did, this deep-seated conviction into the 
field, I longed, intensely longed, to have slavery knocked on 
the head. So I wanted to blaze away against it in my talks 
to the soldiers. Once or twice I did so, to some extent. 

20 My official superiors took me to task for this ; telling me 
that they had nothing to do with slavery ; that they were 
there to sustain the government ; and that they could not 
have discord and dissension sown among the soldiers by talks 
on that subject. In short, they gave me a peremptory order 

25 to let it alone. Of course I obeyed, though it went some- 
what against the grain with me. And the order was un- 
doubtedly right. I was serving in the Department of the 
South ; and my heart fairly leaped for joy when General 
Hunter issued his order or proclamation for emancipating 

30 the slaves in that Department. Yet I was not without serious 
misgivings ; for it rather seemed to me that such a measure 
as that ought to proceed from no one but the Commander-in- 



DANIEL WEBSTER I 59 

Chief of the armies and navies of the United States. You 
are probably aware that, when the order became known 
to President Lincoln, he forthwith overruled and counter- 
manded it. This I was then sorry for. But, you see, I was in 
too great a hurry. Herein I was not so wise, not quite so wise, 5 
as our great and good and divinely patient President. He, 
with his patience long and sorely tried by unwise and impa- 
tient men like myself, — tried quite as much perhaps in that 
way as in any other, — held back, and waited for the " riping 
of the time/' In calling them unwise and impatient men 10 
like myself, I am far from meaning to compare my insignifi- 
cant self generally with them ; for they were, many of them, 
wise and good men in their degree ; but, I suspect, not 
quite so wise and patient as our good father Abraham. But, 
when our President saw, — for he had a strong, clear head 15 
on his shoulders as well as a warm and tender heart in his 
bosom, — when he saw that the time had come, he just 
hurled his thunderbolt, and knocked slavery into the place 
where it should be. By that time the soldiers had all been 
taught by the discipline and logic of events, that they had 20 
got to choose between the death of slavery and the death of 
the nation ; that both of these could not possibly survive the 
struggle : and, when it came to that, they of course chose 
as Webster had taught and inspired them to choose. 

So then, while others had been pouring out, in language 25 
hissing hot, their intense hatred of slavery, and even of the 
Union for slavery's sake, Webster had been pouring out his 
irresistible argument and eloquence in behalf of the Union 
which he loved ; and the love kindled by that eloquence and 
upheld by that argument, — this it was that really did the 30 
work. For, in truth, it so happened at that time, that the 
best and surest way to crush slavery was by strengthening 



160 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

the Union, — by arming Uncle Sam with a hand so big and 
so powerful, that he could just seize the bull of disunion by 
the horns, and wring the bull's head off. And so, when the 
people, both those at home and those in the field, became 
5 thoroughly convinced, as in time they did, that either slavery 
or Uncle Sam had got to die, they said, Uncle Sam shall not 
die, and slavery shall ; and the spirit which thus spoke had 
been kindled within them by the man who was born up in 
New Hampshire one hundred years ago this day. Webster, 

10 to be sure, did not intend the destruction of slavery; that 
was nowise the motive of his labors : but he did intend 
that the Union should be kept alive, and all his mighty ener- 
gies were directed to this end ; such being, as I must think, 
the special purpose for which he was providentially endowed, 

15 and given to the American people. And so the extremists, 
North and South, — they it was who, between them, got up 
our Civil War ; Webster had no hand in that ; but he it was 
who, in effect, fought the battles and gained the victories 
of the Union : for, as the late Judge Redfield, of this city, 

20 once said to me, " the war was all fought out on Daniel 
Webster's lines." 

Now, which do you suppose did the most towards the 
final result, hatred of slavery, or love of the Union? Which 
was the stronger principle here, hatred of that which was 

25 bad, or love of that which was good? And who did the 
most for the final triumph of the very cause which the Abo- 
litionists had so much at heart, they themselves, or the man 
whom they so mercilessly calumniated? They endeavored 
with all their might to break him down ; and he just saved 

30 them from the crime, and the infamy, of breaking up our 
national Union : for how would they have stood before the 
world at this day, if that Union had perished by the fire 



DANIEL WEBSTER l6l 

which they were kindling? Why, they would have been an 
object of universal execration ! a mark of abhorrence to 
coming time, as the philanthropic incendiaries who had de- 
stroyed the last hope of republican institutions upon earth ! 

This, then, is the revenge that Webster has taken upon 5 
them, — he served their own cause far better than they did 
themselves. While they were warring against him, he was 
preparing victory for them. He did not know this, they did 
not know it ; but he was doing right, they were doing wrong : 
he was acting from love, they were acting from hate : he was 10 
trying to make peace, they were trying to break peace, be- 
tween the North and the South: they, to be sure, succeeded 
for a time, but his success was the more lasting : and my 
copy of the Bible the seventh of the Divine Beatitudes does 
not read " Blessed are the peace-breakers," nor do I think 15 
it ought to read so. And do you not believe, — do you not 
know, — that Daniel Webster really did more towards smash- 
ing up slavery than all the Abolitionists in the country put 
together? It need not be said that slavery was killed ; that 
is pretty evident : but I think it may need to be said, at all 20 
events it shall be said, that Daniel Webster was the man who 
killed it ; not, I repeat, from hatred of slavery, but from love 
of the Union : yes, he, he was the Hercules who slew the 
monster, and saved the lady ! And may we not reasonably 
hope that the day is not far distant, when a just sense of his 25 
vast service in this behalf shall purge the moral and social 
atmosphere of Boston, and of Massachusetts, of the dread- 
ful venom and virulence breathed into it more than thirty 
years ago? 

Ladies and Gentlemen, great cause have we to thank God 30 
for the gift of Daniel Webster to this nation, and to bless the 



162 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

day when he was born. I think, withal, we may rest assured 
that he still lives, and is not going to die. His memory will 
out-tongue and live down whatever has hitherto tried, or may 
hereafter try, to choke it off ; his name will still be fresh and 
5 fragrant in the world's regard, when all the lingual rancors 
which so embittered his closing years shall have died away in 
blank forgetfulness." 1 " He had " a voice whose sound was like 
the sea " ; and that voice will keep swelling up and rolling 
on, strong, clear, and sweet, ages after the unbenevolent 

io shriekings of his time, and of our time, shall have gone silent 
forever, Nature's air refusing to propagate them; a treasure 
to be cherished with reverential affection so long as the 
American name shall have a place in the reverence and affec- 
tion of mankind. For, indeed, it is already coming to be 

15 seen, as it has never been seen before, that his broad, wise 
statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade, his 
character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the 
members of this great and illustrious Republic may meet and 
sit down and feast together. 



APPENDIX 



The speech made by Governor Long, at the dinner given 
by the Marshneld Club in commemoration of Webster's 
hundredth birthday, is so manly, so able, so workmanlike, 
and so eloquent in itself, therewithal so just to the subject, 
and so honorable to the speaker, that I cannot well resist 5 
the temptation to transcribe it here, in a place more con- 
venient for preservation and reference than in the news- 
paper columns where it appeared : 

It is but a poor tribute that even the most eloquent voice, 
least of all mine, can pay for Massachusetts to the memory of 10 
her greatest statesman, her mightiest intellect, and her most 
powerful orator. Among her sons he towers like the lonely 
and massive shaft on Bunker Hill, upon the base and the crest 
of which his name is emblazoned clearer than if chiseled 
deep in its granite cubes. For years he was her synonym. 15 
Among the States he sustained her at that proud height, which 
Winthrop and Samuel Adams gave her in the colonial and pro- 
vincial days. With what matchless grandeur he defended her ! 
With what overwhelming power he impressed her convictions 
upon the national life ! God seems to appoint men to special 20 
work, and, that done, the very effort of its achievement 
exhausts them, and they rise not again to the summit of their 
meridian. So it was with Webster. He knows little even of 
written constitutions and frames of government who does not 
know that they exist almost less in the letter than in the inter- 25 
pretation and construction of the letter. In this light it is not 
too much to say that the Constitution of the United States, 
as it existed when it carried our country through the greatest 
peril that ever tested it, was the crystallization of the mind 
of Webster as well as of its original framers. It came from 30 

163 



164 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

them, and was only accepted by some of our own, as a com- 
pact of States, sovereign in all but certain enumerated powers 
delegated to a central government. He made it the crucible 
of a welded Union, — the charter of one great country, the 
5 United States of America. He made the States a Nation and 
infolded them in its single banner. It was the overwhelming 
logic of his discussion, the household familiarity of his simple 
but irresistible statement, that gave us munition to fight the 
war for the preservation of the Union and the abolition of 

10 slavery. It was his eloquence, clear as crystal, and precipitat- 
ing itself in the schoolbooks and literature of a people, which 
had trained up the generation of twenty years ago to regard 
this Nation as one, to love its flag with a patriotism that knew 
no faction or section, to be loyal to the whole country, and to 

15 find in its Constitution power to suppress any hand or combi- 
nation raised against it. The great rebellion of 1861 went 
down hardly more before the cannon of Grant and Farragut 
than the thunder of Webster's reply to Hayne. He knew not 
the extent of his own achievement. His greatest failure was, 

20 that he rose not to the height and actual stroke of his own 
resistless argument, and that he lacked the sublime inspira- 
tion, the disentanglement and the courage, to let the giant he 
had created go upon his errand, first of force, and then, 
through that, of surer peace. He had put the work and the 

25 genius of more than an ordinary lifetime of service into the 
arching and knitting of the Union, and this he could not bear 
to put to the final test : his great heart was sincere in the 
prayer that his eyes might not behold the earthquake that 
would shake it to those foundations which, though he knew it 

30 not, he had made so strong that a succeeding generation saw 
them stand the shock as the oak withstands the storm. Men 
are not gods, and it needed in him that he should rise to a 
moral sublimity and daring as lofty as the intellectual heights 
above which he soared with unequaled strength. So had he 

35 been godlike. 

A great man touches the heart of the people as well as 
their intelligence. They not only admire, they also love him. 
It sometimes seems as if they sought in him some weakness of 
our common human nature, that they may chide him for it, for- 

40 give it, and so endear him to themselves the more. Massachu- 
setts had her friction with the younger Adams only to lay him 
away with profounder honor, and to remember him devotedly 



APPENDIX 165 

as the defender of the right of petition and " the old man elo- 
quent." She forgave the overweening conceit of Sumner ; she 
revoked her unjust censure of him, and now points her youth 
to him in his high niche as the unsullied patriot, without fear 
and without reproach, who stood and spoke for equal rights, 5 
and whose last great service was to demand and enforce his 
country's just claims against the dishonorable trespass of the 
cruisers of that England he had so much admired. Massachu- 
setts smote, too, and broke the heart of Webster, her idol, 
and then broke her own above his grave, and to-day writes his 10 
name highest upon her roll of statesmen. It seems disjointed 
to say that, with such might as his, the impression that comes 
from his face upon the wall, as from his silhouette upon the 
background of our history, is that of sadness, — the sadness of 
the great deep eyes, the sadness of the lonely shore he loved, 15 
and by which he sleeps. The story of Webster from the 
beginning is the very pathos of romance. A minor chord runs 
through it like the tenderest note in a song. What eloquence 
of tears is in that narrative, which reveals in this giant of 
intellectual strength the heart, the single, loving heart of a 20 
child, and in which he describes the winter sleigh ride up the 
New Hampshire hills when his father told him that, at what- 
ever cost, he should have a college education, and he, too full 
to speak, while a warm glow ran all over him, laid his head 
upon his father's shoulder and wept ! 25 

The greatness of Webster and his title to enduring grati- 
tude have two illustrations. He taught the people of the 
United States, in the simplicity of common understanding, the 
principles of the Constitution and government of the country, 
and he wrought for them, in a style of matchless strength and 30 
beauty, the literature of statesmanship. From his lips flowed 
the discussion of constitutional law, of economic philosophy, 
of finance, of international right, of national grandeur, and of 
the whole range of high public themes, so clear and judicial 
that it was no longer discussion, but judgment. To-day, and 35 
so it will be while the Republic endures, the student and the 
legislator turn to the full fountain of his statement for the 
enunciation of these principles. What other authority is 
quoted or holds even the second or third place ? Even his 
words have imbedded themselves in the common phraseology, 40 
and come to the tongue like passages from the psalms or the 
poets. I do not know T that a sentence or a word of Sumner's 



1 66 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

repeats itself in our everyday parlance. The exquisite periods 
of Everett are recalled like the consummate work of some 
master of music, but no note or refrain sings itself over and 
over again to our ears. The brilliant eloquence of Choate is 
5 like the flash of a bursting rocket, lingering upon the retina 
indeed after it has faded from the wings of the night, but as 
elusive of our grasp as spray-drops that glisten in the sun. 
The fiery enthusiasm of Andrew did, indeed, burn some of his 
heart beats forever into the sentiment of Massachusetts ; but 

10 Webster made his language the very household words of a 
nation. They are the library of a people. They inspired and 
still inspire patriotism. They taught and still teach loyalty. 
They are the schoolbook of the citizen. They are the 
inwrought and accepted fiber of American politics. If the 

15 temple of our Republic shall ever fall, they will "still live" 
above the ground, like those great foundation stones in ancient 
ruins, which remain in lonely grandeur, unburied in the dust 
that springs to turf over all else, and making men wonder 
from what rare quarry and by what mighty force they came. 

20 To Webster, almost more than to any other man, — nay, at 
a distance and in the generous spirit of this occasion it is hard 
to discriminate among the lustrous names which now cluster 
at the gates of Heaven, as the golden bars mass the West at 
sunset, — yet to Webster especially of them all is it due that 

25 to-day, wherever a son of the United States, at home or 
abroad, " beholds the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now 
known and honored throughout the earth, still full high 
advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original 
luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star 

30 obscured," he can utter a prouder boast than Civis Romanus 
sum. For he can say, I am an American citize?i. 



II 

WEBSTER AND GIDDINGS 

To the Editor of the Transcript: The Transcript of the 
25 th instant prints a communication from Mr. F. B. San- 
born, of Concord, which has caused me not a little surprise. 
35 It contains a letter from the Honorable J. R. Giddings, 



APPENDIX 167 

formerly a representative in Congress from Ohio, to the Rev- 
erend Theodore Parker. A part of the letter is as follows : 

Hall of Representatives, January 29, 1853 

My dear Sir : You may recollect that, early in the session 
of Congress of 1 847-1 848, the absorbing subject of the presi- 5 
dential candidates was much agitated. Mr. Webster had a few 
friends, but it became apparent that his prospect for nomination 
was not good. I took occasion to suggest to some of his friends 
that Mr. Webster might yet place himself in a most enviable 
position by taking ground in favor of liberty, and against the 10 
encroachments of slavery. I did this with the hope of bringing 
him out on that subject, as I knew that his talents and influence 
would do much for the advancement of our cause. Soon after 
this, at a party, Mr. Webster informed me that he desired to 
submit a question for my opinion, on which he wished me to be 15 
very frank. Accordingly, a few days afterward, the skeleton 
of a speech, in his handwriting, was submitted to my inspection. 
It took ground in favor of Northern rights and against the 
encroachments of slavery. I expressed approval, and, for a 
long time, expected its delivery in the Senate. 20 

It will be seen that this letter was written at least four 
years after the session of Congress to which it refers. Surely 
Mr. Giddings must have overlooked or forgotten two very 
remarkable speeches made by Webster : one on the 1st of 
March, 1847, and entitled The Mexican War ; the other on 25 
the 23d of March, 1848, and entitled Objects of the Mexican 
War. Both speeches are given in the fifth volume of 
Webster's Works, Little & Brown's edition, 1851. I hope 
you will not find it inconvenient to print a few extracts 
from those speeches, in justice to all the parties concerned. 30 
In the first of them we have the following : 

At present, I should hardly have risen but to lay before the 
Senate the resolutions of the House of Representatives of Massa- 
chusetts, adopted on Thursday last. We have a great deal of 
commentary and criticism on State resolutions brought here. 35 
Those of Michigan particularly have been very sharply and 



168 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

narrowly looked into, to see whether they really mean what they 
seem to mean. These resolutions of Massachusetts, I hope, are 
sufficiently distinct and decided. They admit of neither doubt 
nor cavil, even if doubt or cavil were permissible in such a 
5 case. 

What the legislature of Massachusetts thinks, it has said, 
and said plainly and directly. I have not, before any tribunal, 
tried my ingenuity at what the lawyers call a special demurrer 
for many years ; and I never tried it here in the Senate. In 

io the business of legislation, and especially in considering State 
resolutions and the proceedings of public assemblies, it is our 
duty, of course, to understand everything according to the com- 
mon meaning of the words used. Of all occasions, these are the 
last in which one should stick in the bark, or seek for loopholes 

1 5 or means of escape ; or, in the language of an eminent judge of 
former times, " hitch and hang on pins and particles." We must 
take the substance fairly, and as it is, and not hesitate about 
forms and phrases. 

We are in the midst of a war, not waged at home in defense 

20 of our soil, but waged a thousand miles off, and in the heart of 
the territories of another Government. It is not denied that 
this war is now prosecuted for the acquisition of territory ; at 
least, if any deny it, others admit it, and all know it to be true. 
Seven or eight of the free States, comprising some of the largest, 

25 have remonstrated against the prosecution of the war for such 
a purpose, in language suited to their meaning. These remon- 
strances come here with the distinct and precise object of dis- 
suading us from the further prosecution of the war for the 
acquisition of territory by conquest. Before territory is actually 

30 obtained, and its future character fixed, they beseech us to give 
up an object so full of danger. One and all, they protest against 
the extension of slave territory ; one and all, they regard it as 
the solemn duty of the Representatives of the free States to take 
security, in advance, that no more slave States shall be added 

35 to the Union. They demand of us this pledge, this assurance, 
before the purchase money is paid, or the bargain concluded. 

Then, after reading the Massachusetts resolutions, Webster 

went on as follows : 

The House of Representatives of Massachusetts is, I believe, 

40 the most numerous legislative body in the country. On this 

occasion it was not full ; but among those present there was an 



APPENDIX 169 

entire unanimity. For the resolutions there were two hundred 
and thirty votes ; against them, none. Not one man stood up 
to justify the war upon such grounds as those upon which it 
has been, from day to day, defended here. Massachusetts, 
without one dissenting voice, and I thank her for it, and am 5 
proud of her for it, has denounced the whole object for which 
our armies are now traversing the plains of Mexico, or about to 
plunge into the pestilence of her coasts. The people of Massa- 
chusetts are as unanimous as the members of her legislature, and 
so are her Representatives here. I have heard no man in the State, 10 
in public or in private life, express a different opinion. If anything 
is certain, it is certain that the sentiment of the whole North is 
utterly opposed to the acquisition of territory, to be formed into 
slaveholding States, and, as such, admitted into the Union. 

But here, Sir, I cannot but pause. I am arrested by occur- 15 
rences of this night, which, I confess, fill me with alarm. They 
are ominous, portentous. Votes which have just been passed 
by majorities here cannot fail to awaken public attention. Every 
patriotic American, every man who wishes to preserve the Con- 
stitution, ought to ponder them well. ... 20 

Mr. President, I arraign no men and no parties. I take no 
judgment into my own hands. But I present this simple state- 
ment of facts and consequences to the country, and ask for it, 
humbly but most earnestly, the serious consideration of the 
people. Shall we prosecute this war for the purpose of bringing 25 
on a controversy which is likely to shake the Government to its 
center? . . . 

Within a year or two after Texas had achieved her independ- 
ence, there were those who already spoke of its annexation to 
the United States. Against that project I felt it to be my duty 30 
to take an early and a decided course. Having occasion to 
address political friends in the City of New York in March, 
1837, I expressed my sentiments as fully and as strongly as I 
could. From those opinions I have never swerved. From the 
first I saw nothing but danger to arise to the country from such 35 
annexation. . . . 

Sir, I fear we are not yet arrived at the beginning of the 
end. I pretend to see but little into the future, and that little 
affords no gratification. All I can scan is contention, strife, and 
agitation. Before we obtain a perfect right to conquered terri- 40 
tory, there must be a cession. A cession can only be made by 
treaty. Will the North consent to a treaty bringing in territory 



170 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

subject to slavery ? Will the South consent to a treaty bring- 
ing in territory from which slavery is excluded ? Sir, the future 
is full of difficulties and full of dangers. We are suffering to 
pass the golden opportunity for securing harmony and the sta- 
5 bility of the Constitution. We appear to me to be rushing upon 
perils headlong, and with our eyes wide open. But I put my trust 
in Providence, and in that good sense and patriotism of the 
people which will yet, I hope, be awakened before it is too late. 

Still more emphatic, if possible, are the following passages 
10 from the speech made a little more than a year later : 

On Friday a bill passed the Senate for raising ten regiments 
of new troops for the further prosecution of the war against 
Mexico ; and we have been informed that that measure is shortly 
to be followed, in this branch of the legislature, by a bill to raise 

15 twenty regiments of volunteers for the same service. I was 
desirous of expressing my opinions against the object of these 
bills, against the supposed necessity which leads to their enact- 
ment, and against the general policy which they are apparently 
designed to promote. Circumstances personal to myself, but 

20 beyond my control, compelled me to forego, on that day, the 
execution of that design. . . . 

This war was waged for the object of creating new States, 
on the southern border of the United States, out of Mexican 
territory, and with such population as could be found resident 

25 thereupon. I have opposed this object. I am against all acces- 
sions of territory to form new States. And this is no matter of 
sentimentality, which I am to parade before mass meetings or 
before any constituents at home. It is not a matter with me 
of declamation, or of regret, or of expressed repugnance. It is 

30 a matter of firm, unchangeable purpose. I yield nothing to the 
force of circumstances that have occurred, or that I can consider 
as likely to occur. I therefore say, Sir, that, if I were asked 
to-day whether, for the sake of peace, I would take a treaty for 
adding two new States to the Union on our southern border, I 

35 would say No / distinctly, No ! And I wish every man in the 
United States to understand that to be my judgment and my 
purpose. . . . 

Just before the commencement of the present administration, 
the resolutions for the annexation of Texas were passed in 

40 Congress. Texas complied with the provisions of those resolu- 
tions, and was here, or the case was here, on the 22d day of 



APPENDIX 171 

December, 1845, f° r ner ^ na l admission into the Union as one 
of the States. I took occasion then to say that I thought there 
must be some limit to the extent of our territories, and that I 
wished this country should exhibit to the world the example 
of a powerful republic, without greediness or hunger of empire. 5 
And I added that, while I held with as much faithfulness as any 
citizen of the country to all the original arrangements and com- 
promises of the Constitution under which we live, I never could, 
and I never should, bring myself to be in favor of the admission 
of any States into the Union as slaveholding States. ... 10 

If you bring in new States, any State that comes in must 
have two Senators. She may come in with fifty or sixty thou- 
sand people, or more. You may have from a particular State 
more Senators than you have Representatives. Can anything 
occur to disfigure and derange the form of government under 15 
which we live more signally than that ? The Senate, augmented 
by these new Senators coming from States where there are few 
people, becomes an odious oligarchy. It holds power without 
any adequate constituency. . . . 

Sir, I hardly dare trust myself. I don't know but that I may 20 
be under some delusion. It may be the weakness of my eyes 
that forms this monstrous apparition. But, if I may trust myself, 
if I can persuade myself that I am in my right mind, then it 
does appear to me that we in this Senate have been and are 
acting, and are likely to be acting hereafter, and immediately, 25 
a part which will form the most remarkable epoch in the history 
of our country. I hold it to be enormous, flagrant, an outrage 
upon all the principles of popular republican government, and 
on the elementary provisions of the Constitution under which 
we live, and which we have sworn to support. ... 30 

I think I see a course adopted which is likely to turn the 
Constitution of the land into a deformed monster, into a curse 
rather than a blessing ; in fact, a frame of an unequal govern- 
ment, not founded on popular representation, not founded on 
equality, but on the grossest inequality; and I think that this 35 
process will go on, or that there is danger that it will go on, 
until this Union shall fall to pieces. I reskt it, to-day and always. 
Whoever falters or whoever flies, I continue the contest ! 

I know, Sir, that all the portents are discouraging. Would 
to God I could auspicate good influences ! Would to God that 40 
those who think with me, and myself, could hope for stronger 
support ! Would that we could stand where we desire to stand ! 



172 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

I see the signs are sinister. But with few, or alone, my position 
is fixed. If there were time I would gladly awaken the country. 
I believe the country might be awakened, although it may be 
too late. For myself, supported or unsupported, by the bless- 
5 ing of God, I shall do my duty. I see well enough all the 
adverse indications. But I am sustained by a deep and con- 
scientious sense of duty ; and, while supported by that feeling, 
and while such great interests are at stake, I defy auguries, 
and ask no omen but my country's cause ! 

10 Mr. Sanborn thinks, as he well may, that the alleged dis- 
honest change in Webster's course, about which so much 
has been said, was not connected with the speech he made 
on the 7th of March, 1850, but with a speech which he did 
not make sometime in 1847 or 1848. The letter which 

15 Mr. Sanborn gives, from Mr. Sumner to Mr. Parker, is with- 
out date \ but that letter evidently refers also to some speech 
that Webster did not make against the Mexican war. A 
part of Mr. Sumner's letter is as follows : " At the Senate 
I spoke with Giddings. He repeated what he had told me 

20 before, that Webster had submitted to him the brief of a 
speech against the Mexican war, which he never delivered." 
Now, whether Webster ever delivered the particular speech 
here referred to may be a question. But I submit that he 
could not well have made any fuller or stronger declarations 

25 against admitting any new slaveholding States and against 
all extension of slavery than we have in the forecited pas- 
sages from his speeches in 1847 and 1848. Surely these 
passages must be enough to satisfy any candid and fair- 
minded man, that Webster did not then shirk the honest 

30 expression of his mind, from what Mr. Sumner was pleased 
to call " the paltriness of his office-seeking." 

Probably the speech which Webster did not deliver, and 
of which a " skeleton " was shown to Mr. Giddings, was the 
one referred to in one of the forecited passages from the 



APPENDIX 



173 



speech of March 23, 1848 : " I was desirous of expressing 
my opinions against the object of these bills," etc. (page 
170). And is not the reason which he there assigns, for not 
having made that intended speech, sufficient? especially in 
view of the speech he made on the 23d of March, 1848? 5 
One would think that even an unbenevolent mind might be 
satisfied with that reason. 

Now, as nearly all the South were at that time manifestly 
bent on conquering new territory for the sole purpose of 
extending slavery, Webster, in his earnest and repeated 10 
protests and warnings against such extension, certainly had 
a very funny way of truckling, or of selling himself, for 
Southern votes. And as the imputing of bad motives, save 
" under a compelling occasion," is not generally regarded 
as a very high act of virtue, therefore we are bound in 15 
charity to presume that Mr. Sumner was strictly compelled 
to impute bad motives in that particular case. But it seems 
not unlikely that his undated letter to Mr. Parker may have 
been written before Webster's delivery of the speech which 
he had been obliged to postpone. Be that as it may, Mr. 20 
Sanborn had of course a perfect right to overlook or ignore 
the facts belonging to the matter in hand, and then speak 
just as if those facts were nonexistent. For it is clearly 
indispensable that Webster's character should somehow be 
put to death ; and, where the end is so high and holy, it is 25 
evidently not worth the while to be at all scrupulous as to 
the means. Finally, in the case of Webster, liberal men, 
to be sure, must be allowed the special privilege of drawing 
upon their own imagination for the facts touching his action, 
and upon their own generous hearts, or their " inner con- 30 
sciousness," for his motives. 

H. N. H. 

Cambridge, January, 1882 



174 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 



III 

At an anniversary meeting of the Massachusetts Anti- 
slavery Society, held in Faneuil Hall, on the 23d and 24th 
of January, 1850, a series of resolutions was adopted, one 
of which is as follows : 

5 Resolved, That, admiring the fearlessness, the fidelity to prin- 
ciple, and the just discernment of slavery's true nature, and its 
chief strongholds, manifested by the great convention of Ohio's 
sons and daughters, assembled in September last at Berlin, in that 
State, we, the members and friends of the Massachusetts Anti- 

10 slavery Society, assembled in Faneuil Hall, do cordially respond 
to their words, and say with them, With full confidence in the 
integrity of our purpose and the justice of our cause, we do 
hereby declare ourselves the enemies of the Constitution, Union, 
and Government of the United States, and the friends of the 

15 new Confederacy of States, where there shall be no union with 
slaveholders, but where there shall ever be free soil, free labor, 
and free men ; and we proclaim it as our unalterable purpose 
and determination to live and labor for a dissolution of the 
present Union, by all lawful and just, though bloodless and 

20 pacific, means, and for the formation of a new republic, that 
shall be such, not in name only, but in full living reality and 
truth. And we do hereby invite and entreat all our fellow-citi- 
zens and the friends of justice, humanity, and true liberty 
throughout the Northern States, to unite with us in laboring 

25 for so glorious an object. 

Many pages might easily be filled with matter just like 
the above, all plainly demonstrating that the Abolitionists 
were at that time fierce disunionists, as much so as the 
" fire-eaters" of the South ; and that the former, in common 
30 with the latter, were pushing on, with all their might, a 
scheme of " peaceable secession." How likely such seces- 
sion was to be peaceable, was charmingly shown by our four 
smilingly peaceful years of civil war. The Abolitionists 
were then feeding themselves with eager hopes of a speedy 



APPENDIX 175 

disruption or " dissolution " of the Union. Those hopes were 
badly dashed by the passing of the Compromise Measures, 
which took place just when their patriotic and philanthropic 
fervor was at the white heat of intensity. This abundantly 
explains their amiable and benevolent virulence against 5 
Webster; for " Death loves a shining mark." To be sure, 
they had loved Webster mightily when he opposed Nullifi- 
cation and Secession in South Carolina • but they hated 
him with inexpressible bitterness when he opposed the same 
thing in Massachusetts : the case was then altered com- 10 
pietely, of course ; and so their milk instantaneously somer- 
saulted into gall ! 

Upon a fair and candid view of the whole matter, the 
upshot seems to be about this : Webster was conscientiously 
loyal, the Abolitionists were conscientiously disloyal, to the 15 
Union and the Constitution ; he thought the Union ought 
to be preserved, they thought it ought to be destroyed. 
Conscience was of course to be respected in them ; and 
why not as much so in him? Wisdom, also, or moderation, 
if they had possessed it, would have been worthy of respect 20 
in them ; Webster did possess it, and in him it was worthy 
of respect. In other words, the Abolitionists were honest, 
but they were fanatics ; Webster, also, was honest, and was 
not a fanatic : this was just the difference between them. 
So, too, the proslavery fanatics of the South were no doubt 25 
just as honest as the antislavery fanatics of the North : on 
both sides the honesty was good ; the fanaticism on both 
sides was bad. 

One word more. The Abolitionists were eager and impa- 
tient to run the risk of setting the whole Nation on fire, in 30 
order to purge off a local and long-standing nuisance, which 
it was indeed unspeakably desirable to get rid of : Webster 



176 HUDSON'S ESSAYS 

was deeply and most honorably anxious that the nuisance 
should be abated, as he believed it might and would be in 
time, without wrapping the Nation in flames. And, when 
the crisis came, the people of the North proved to be so 
5 far in sympathy with him, that they preferred an almost 
desperate civil war to the downfall of the Union. It is also 
to be said, in praise of the Abolitionists generally, that, when 
they found, as they did find, that the cause of the Union 
might become, and was likely to become, a mighty force 

10 for the destruction of slavery, they fell in heartily with the 
rest, cast off their disloyalty to the Union, turned earnest 
patriots, and worked nobly, none more so, in support of 
that cause. And it has really long seemed to me that, now 
that the struggle is a thing of the past, and passion has 

15 had time to cool, the old Abolitionists, above all other 
people in the land, frankly discarding the animosities of 
thirty years ago, ought to love and honor the name of Daniel 
Webster. Surely they owe him that reparation ; and they 
owe it even more to themselves than to him ! And I am 

20 the rather moved to say this, inasmuch as, during those long- 
past years, I was myself in full sympathy with their hatred 
of slavery. 



NOTES 



The figures in heavy- faced type refer to pages ; those in plain type, to the lines 
which are annotated. 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 

3 15 I still adhere etc. : This subject is somewhat unsettled in the 
minds of the best editors and teachers, but there can be no doubt 
that from his point of view Professor Hudson is right. The revised 
Hudson edition retains the notes at the foot of the page. These 
notes are of three kinds: the first gives all the important textual 
variants from the quartos and folios ; the second deals with obscure 
words and passages; and the third gives types of aesthetic inter- 
pretation from the best sources. 

4 18-21 And perhaps the tendency etc. : This tendency has some- 
what increased since Professor Hudson's time, to the injury of 
English teaching, for too often it has led the teacher to rely upon 
such notes for recitational purposes rather than upon individual 
initiative to reach the message of the text. This is always deaden- 
ing in its effect. Mr. Alfred Ainger says : "A student might obtain 
full marks in such an exercise without its proving that he or she 
was any better, wiser, or happier for any of the literature of which 
it treats." 

5 20 Critical Notes : At the present time, when cheap reprints of 
the early texts are accessible, it is possible and desirable to lead the 
student in the secondary schools to take an interest in the Folios 
and Quartos. 

6 10-12 I hold etc. : Here is the essence of Professor Hudson's 
creed as to the teaching of English literature. It is interesting to 
note that all the great teachers of the present time agree with him. 
Dr. James Martineau says : " To teach us what to love and what 
to hate, whom to honor and whom to despise, is the substance of 
human training; and I would rather have an hour's communion 

177 



178 NOTES 

with one noble soul than to read the law of gravitation through 
and through." 

" In England, most especially, and at its university centers, this 
agitation (of the place of literature in liberal studies) has become 
intense and demonstrative, arousing both scholarly and popular 
interest, and bidding fair, even now, to revolutionize, in the British 
Empire, all educational conceptions hitherto held." — Professor 
T. W. Hunt. 

6 18-19 The world is getting etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says 
of such authors : " The trouble is they all want to be ' in society,' 
overwhelmed with invitations from the publishers, well known and 
talked about at the clubs, named every day in the newspapers, 
photographed for the news stalls." 

7 24-28 And the aesthetic criticism etc. : There is no doubt that 
the aesthetic criticism of Professor Hudson has done more for the 
study of Shakespeare in this country than all the verbal criticism 
published. Dr. H. H. Furness wrote to Professor Hudson in 1879: 
" You stand facile princeps among living writers in the domain of 
Shakespeare aesthetic criticism. Your chapter on the morality of 
Shakespeare is the finest piece of aesthetic criticism that has been 
written in our day, or in any day." 

8 20-23 We seem indeed etc. : Speaking of such a pupil, Mr. Alfred 
Ainger says : " He is eager at once to exercise his judgment, his 
critical powers ; to be able quickly to give a reason for the faith 
that is in him. Let him not be in a hurry. Love must come first, 
criticis?n afterwards." 

9 11-13 Thus in our hot haste etc. : This paragraph seems very 
modern, although it was written more than a quarter of a century 
ago. Browning, in his " What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three 
souls, one man," reveals the threefold nature of all of us. Unless 
each of these natures is developed harmoniously, serious results 
follow. 

10 13-14 One would suppose etc.: The truth of this paragraph is 
finely illustrated in Dr. Martineau's " The Child's Thought " and 
Bishop Brooks's " The Beautiful Gate of the Temple," two ser- 
mons upon the education of the child which no teacher should fail 
to study. Dr. Martineau says: "If both world and church will 
only learn what the child's simple presence may teach, instead of 



PREFACE TO SCHOOL HAMLET 179 

teaching what he cannot innocently learn, the truth may dawn upon 
them that he seldom requires to be led, — only not to be misled" 
Bishop Brooks says : " Every child is a separate and peculiar plant, 
— different from every other. What shall the teacher do, then ? Not 
say, ' I will make this child before me this or that,' but, ' I will 
quicken every activity with its own spiritual stimulus.' " 

11 5-8 What a teacher, therefore etc. : That we are getting some 
results from such teaching as Professor Hudson urges in this para- 
graph is evident from what President Woodrow Wilson says of 
the reform in teaching at Princeton. " The new method is founded 
on the proposition that a university is a place where men go to read 
great subjects of study, and to be assisted by friendly preceptors 
who ought to be stimulating and instructive. Not uniformity, but 
elasticity of method is wanted." " The literary pedant," says 
Professor T. W. Hunt, " emphasizing names and dates and the 
minutest matters of an author's life, is one type ; the literary guide 
and master, bringing to light great generic principles in literature 
and illustrating its relation to all high forms of mental discipline, 
is quite another type, and the only worthy one." 

12 4-6 Hence, no doubt, etc. : The truth of this, applied to the 
general tendency of our time to diffuseness, is aptly illustrated by 
Mr. R. H. Hutton, who says : "A perfect organization of facilities 
for expression carries off far too soon everything in the shape of 
literary feeling and thought into the public mind without giving it 
time to grow to what is great and forcible. ... It is the damming 
up of driblets of thought and feeling which really creates great 
supplies of such thought and feeling. The age of reserve prepares 
the way for the age of literary splendour." 

13 22 For the learning of words etc. : President Woodrow Wilson 
says : " It is not knowledge that moves the world, but ideals, con- 
victions, and whoever studies humanity ought to study it alive, 
practice the vivisection of reading literature, and acquaint himself 
with something more than anatomies which are no longer in use 
by spirits." Professor T. W. Hunt says : " Literature has been so 
held in abeyance by classical educators to the study of linguistics 
that it has been sacrificed in the house of its friends." 

14 25-27 A constant dissecting etc. : In speaking of the scientific 
method President Woodrow Wilson says : " If you do so limit and 



180 NOTES 

constrain what you teach, you thrust taste and insight and delicacy 
of perception quite out of the schools . . ., make education an 
affair of tasting and handling and smelling, and so create Philistia, 
that country in which they speak of « mere literature.' " 

16 16-19 I was convinced etc. : These lines reveal the cause of the 
lack of interest in many English class rooms in school and college. 
The recitation of the secondary school and the lecture in the col- 
lege are too often merely mechanical devices to go through the 
hour, while they offer bounties to the one who can cram and dis- 
gorge. It is small wonder that Professor William James attacked 
the Ph.D. Octopus and its destructive effect upon the imagination. 
Professor Hugo Munsterberg, in his address at the dedication of 
Emerson Hall, Harvard University, said that while the psychologist 
by research might gather all material possible, he would not know 
what to do with it unless he had imagination. Mr. Herbert Paul says : 
" Specialists have substituted for the old idea of a liberal education 
a multitude of narrow and technical schools for cramming the mem- 
ory and starving the intellect." Mr. A. C. Benson says : " We continue 
to respect the erudite mind, and to decry the appreciative spirit as 
amateurish and dilettante, but omniscience is not even desirable in 
the ordinary mind." 

17 16-17 For these reasons etc.: The method which Professor 
Hudson used makes the greatest demands upon the teacher, for 
he must first of all know literature, and he must not parade his 
knowledge before the class. He must act as a guide to the delight- 
ful country, but must not lecture on its beauties ; he must allow the 
class to do its own seeing. 

A significant testimony to this method is given by Dr. H. H. 
Furness in a letter to Professor Hudson. He writes : "lam filled 
with measureless content when I reflect how much my boys will 
owe to you of their introduction to Shakespeare. They always 
mention your exercises in their letters, with great and increasing 
interest. After all, I am not sure that such a school as that 
[St. Paul's, Concord, New Hampshire] does not constitute the finest 
audience a man can have, the echoes of his voice will float farther 
down the tide of time, and no computation can estimate the fruit 
which the seed then sown may produce." 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 181 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 



19 21-23 Then too most of the pupils etc. : One of the greatest 
problems of modern secondary education is how to furnish the 
type of training for the city-bred boy and girl which life on the farm 
gave to the country boy and girl. As yet no mechanic arts school, 
or school of domestic science, has been created to do this work. 
As Senator Hoar says : " There was never a better gymnasium for 
body or mind and soul ; there was never a fitter preparation for 
college or university, or for the greater university of the world, than 
the life from the early settlement of the country down to a day 
most of us can remember, on a New England farm. What an edu- 
cation in the old days when the thick wood came up close to the 
village ; when the boys' schoolmates were the hawk and the owl, 
and the raccoon and the muskrat. In those days when a boy wanted 
to have a thing done he had to do it for himself. He had to keep 
his eyes and his ears open to Nature's constant challenge from wood 
and field and river and pond. The pickerel in the pond, the musk- 
rat in the river, the hawk in the sky, the woodchuck in his hole, 
and the gray squirrel on the tree top were calling to him, ■ Get me 
if you can.' " 

21 17-19 And, good as vocal intelligence may be etc. : We are now 
acknowledging the truth of this idea, for we have been taught it by 
the superior efficiency of the German in all that pertains to the 
crafts, an efficiency which is due to a right relation of mind and 
hand. 

21 25-28 But I suspect etc. : Ruskin says: "I am always struck 
by the precedence which the idea of ' a position in life ' takes above 
all other thoughts in the parents' — more especially in the mothers' 
— minds. The education befitting such and such a station in life, — 
this is the phrase, this the object, always. They never seek, so far 
as I can make out, an education good in itself. It never seems to 
occur to these parents that there may be an education which is 
advancement in life." 

23 28-31 For, surely, the two parts of education etc. : This is being 
practically worked out in those schools where manual training is 
made a part of the regular curriculum of the school, not a side 
issue quite unrelated to the main idea of education. 



182 NOTES 

24 26-27 And here let me say etc. : Honorable John D. Long, in an 
address at Vassar College in 1905, said : " No one can look at modern 
society and not be appalled at the outrage and indignities being com- 
mitted in all walks of life. It is in this mass of festering sores that 
our danger lies. I look to see a new infusion of culture and charm 
given to the world by the educated woman. It is her mission to 
save human society from vulgarity and decay. If she train up her 
husband and children to simple living, civilization will go forward 
in this country." 

25 11-12 Our girls in school etc. : Tennyson makes this idea cen- 
tral in The Princess. In speaking of his mother, he says : 

One 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants, 
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, 
Interpreter between the Gods and men, 
Who look'd all native to her place, and yet 
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere 
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce 
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, 
And girdled her with music. Happy he 
With such a mother ! 

Canto VII, 299-309. 

26 7-8 This leisure etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says : " If 
this free people to which we belong is to keep its fine spirit, its per- 
fect temper amidst affairs, its high courage in face of difficulties, its 
wise temperateness and wide-eyed hope, it must continue to drink 
deep and often from the old wells of English undefiled, quaff the 
keen tonic of its best ideals, keep its blood warm with all the great 
utterances of exalted purpose and pure principle of w T hich its match- 
less literature is full. The great spirits of the past must command 
us in the tasks of the future, mere literature will keep us pure and 
keep us strong." 

26 30 And this is quite as true etc. : Mr. J. M. Barrie says : " When 
you looked into my mother's eyes, you knew why it was God sent 
her into the world : to open the eyes of all who look to beautiful 
thoughts, and this is the beginning and end of literature. " 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 183 

27 3-6 I suspect etc. : Mr. Frederic Harrison says : " When will 
men understand that the reading of great books is a faculty to be 
acquired, not a natural gift, at least not to those who are spoiled by 
our current education and habits of life? An insatiable appetite 
for new novels makes it as hard to read a masterpiece as it seems 
to a Parisian boulevardier to live in a quiet country. Until a man 
can truly enjoy a draft of clear water bubbling from a mountain 
side, his taste is in an unwholesome state." 

28 1-3 I say pleasure etc. : I have always maintained that the Eng- 
lish hour in the class room should be an hour of recreation for pupil 
and teacher. Mr. Alfred Ainger says : " Only through some pleas- 
ure given, I venture to assert, is any profit afforded by the study 
of an English writer. . . . The great end then, I submit, of English 
literature as an element of education is to give pleasured Mr. A. C. 
Benson says: "A man who reads Virgil for pleasure is a better 
result of a system of education than one who re-edits Tibullus" 

29 3-7 The thing is etc. : Mr. Frederic Harrison says : " The choice 
of books is really the choice of an education, of a moral and intel- 
lectual ideal, of the whole duty of man." 

29 17-21 If people have their tastes etc. : Mr. Augustine Birrell 
says : " If, then, we would possess good taste, we must take pains 
about it. We must study models, we must follow examples. . . . The 
best way of telling a good book from a bad one is to make yourself 
as well acquainted as you can with some of the great literary models. 
... A great crowd of books is as destructive of the literary instinct, 
which is a highly delicate thing, as is a London evening party of 
the social instinct." 

30 5-7 The direct aids and inspirations etc. : Dr. Martineau says : 
;< Knowledge bears a double fruit — a physical and a moral. It 
enables us to do ??iore, and disposes us to be better. But it is not 
the same kind of knowledge that effects both of these results. We 
increase our power by knowing objects that are beneath us; our 
goodness, by knowing those that are above us." 

30 28-31 5 That an author etc. : President Woodrow Wilson says : 
11 Those writings which we reckon worthy of the name of literature 
are the product not of reasoned thought, but of the imagination 
and of the spiritual vision of those who see, — writings winged not 
with knowledge but with sympathy, with sentiment, with heartiness." 



1 84 NOTES 

Professor T. W. Hunt says : " What is wanting in these commer- 
cial and practical days is the spiritual and immortal view of letters, 

— the exaltation and realization of the ideal in literature as distinct 
from the visible, tangible, and merely mercenary." 

31 23-25 Nor is it the least benefit etc. : Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phil- 
lipps writes to Professor Hudson in April, 1881 : " My most hearty 
thanks for the English in Schools. What you say is full of interest 
and of the greatest importance. I am just starting for Stratford- 
on-Avon and intend to reread it in Shakespeare's own town. Your 
able and eloquent edition of He7iry VIII I am charmed with. It 
came just in time for me to quote a bit from your introduction in 
a new book just completed which I shall have the pleasure of 
sending you." 

32 28-31 The statistics of our public libraries etc. : Recent reports 
from the Boston Public Library are very suggestive, and show 
clearly that the conditions are encouraging. They reveal that an 
increasing proportion of great poetry is being called for. 

33 12-17 Yet, in the matter of practical learning etc. : "A man of 
sensitive imagination and elevated moral sense, of a wide knowledge 
and capacity for affairs, Burke stood in the midst of the English 
nation speaking its moral judgments upon affairs, its character in 
political action, its purposes of freedom, equity, wide and equal 
progress. It is the immortal charm of his speech and manner that 
gives permanence to his works. He is a master in the use of the 
great style." — President Woodrow Wilson. 

33 18-24 And a few of Webster's etc. : " If ever being walked the 
earth clad in the panoply of imperial manhood, it was Daniel 
Webster. If ever being trod the earth whom the Greek or Roman 
fable would have made a demigod, it was this child of the New Hamp- 
shire farmhouse. His sentences dwell and abide with us like the 
psalms of David or the songs of Burns." — George F. Hoar. 

34 14-16 Few, very few etc. : " In our race are thousands of 
readers, presently there will be millions, who know not a word of 
Greek or Latin, and will never learn these languages. If this host 
of readers are ever to gain any sense of the power and charm of the 
great poets of antiquity, their way to gain it is not through transla- 
tions of the ancients, but through the original poetry of Milton." 

— Matthew Arnold. 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 185 

34 28-31 I suspect etc. : This is as true now as it was when Pro- 
fessor Hudson uttered it. The testimony of all those who have 
made themselves familiar with the teaching of literature in the 
schools is that it is the one subject which is taught almost uni- 
formly badly. "Mere literature," says President Woodrow Wilson, 
" is not an expression of form, but an expression of spirit. This is 
a fugitive and troublesome thing, and perhaps does not belong in 
well-conceived plans of universal instruction; for it offers many 
embarrassments to the pedagogic method. It escapes all scientific 
categories. It is not pervious to research. It is too wayward to be 
brought under the discipline of exposition." 

36 9-12 How strange it is, then etc.: It must be remembered that 
when these words were written there was no study of Shakespeare 
or the English classics in our secondary schools, and but little in the 
colleges. The impulse to such study came more largely from Pro- 
fessor Hudson, his teaching and writing, than from any other source. 

36 25-27 Nevertheless I am far from thinking etc. : This is essen- 
tially the position taken by every great teacher of English and, I might 
almost say, of every great teacher of Science, at the present time. 

Professor Edward Dowden says : " If English literature be con- 
nected in our courses with Greek, Latin, French, or German litera- 
ture, the thoughtful student can hardly fail to be aroused by the 
comparative studies to consider questions which demand an answer 
from philosophy." Cf. Professor Hugo Munsterberg, Science and 
Idealism. 

37 16-19 The fashion indeed has been growing etc. : Mr. Frederic 
Harrison says : "Assiduous practice in composing neat essays has 
turned out of late ten thousand men and women who can put 
together very pleasant prose. It has not turned out one living 
master in prose as Tennyson was master in verse. . . . The young 
student — ex hypothesi — has to learn, not to teach. His duty is to 
digest knowledge, not to popularize it and carry it abroad." 

38 26-29 And so the secret of a good style etc. : " What you need 
is, not a critical knowledge of language, but a quick feeling for it. 
You must immerse your thought in your phrase, till each becomes 
saturated with the other. And you must produce in color, with the 
touch of imagination, which lifts what you write away from the dull 
levels of mere exposition." — President Woodrow Wilson. 



186 NOTES 

41 27-29 In short etc. : Fortunately we have made a great gain in 
this matter during the last decade. Wherever English has had a 
fair chance in our secondary schools, it assumes a position of dignity 
and power second to no subject in the curriculum. 

43 6-9 The chronic nervous intensity etc. : Professor William 
James, in his Talks o?i Psychology and Life's Ideals, — a splendid 
recent corroboration of Dr. Hudson's ideas on education, — says : 
" We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse, and 
have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work 
so hard. I suspect that this is an immense mistake. I suspect that 
neither the nature nor the amount of their work is accountable for 
the frequency and severity of our breakdowns, but that their cause 
lies rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, 
in that breathlessness and tension, that anxiety of feature and that 
solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, 
by which with us the work is so apt to be accompanied, and from 
which a European who should do the same work would nine times 
out of ten be free." 

46 21-24 Nor would I attempt etc. : " It is through the subject- 
matter that the interest of students can be best maintained, and if 
so maintained, whatever incidental instruction may be called for 
(and to be called for, it must be relevant to the subject-matter) will 
tell the better upon them. But even if relevant it must not be 
allowed to divert the current of thought and feeling into standing 
pools." — Professor Hiram Corson. 

47 2-4 For such delight etc. : President Woodrow Wilson, in speak- 
ing of the deadening results of too much emphasis upon details as 
revealed in the methods called scientific, says : " We must not be 
impatient of this truant child of fancy (the spirit of mere literature). 
When the schools cast her out, she will stand in need of friendly 
succor. We must be free hearted in order to make her happy, for 
she will accept entertainment of no sober, prudent fellow who shall 
counsel her to mend her ways. She has always made light of hard- 
ships, and she has never loved or obeyed any save those who were 
of her own mind, those who were indulgent to her humors, re- 
sponsive to her ways of thought, attentive to her whims, content 
with her * mere ' charms. She already has her small following of 
devotees, like all charming, capricious mistresses. There are some 



ENGLISH IN SCHOOLS 187 

still who think that to know her is better than a liberal edu- 
cation." 

47 23-29 From all which it follows etc. : The new requirements for 
college entrance examination in English have done much to rid the 
schools of scrappy texts. We are now studying authors as individ- 
uals revealed through their works. This requires the use of single 
texts rather than aggregations covering long periods of time. 

" Students are not kept long enough in contact with the inner 
life of English Letters to take in something of that spirit that per- 
vades them." — Professor T. W. Huint. 

48 17-19 As for the matter of rhetoric etc. : The place of formal 
rhetoric in the school and the college is a subject of much discussion. 
I believe that too much pressure put upon it before the student 
becomes familiar with the great prose writers leads to mischief, in 
that it results in a belief, on the part of the student, that rhetoric is 
the cause of literary workmanship ; whereas, if it be postponed to a 
period when great prose can be used as illustrating the principles 
both of logic and rhetoric, the student sees at once that the laws of 
each only reveal the manner in which the author was in the habit 
of thinking. The testimony of men of letters on the subject is to the 
point. Mr. John Morley says : " I have very little faith in rules of 
style, though I have an unbounded faith in the virtue of cultivating 
direct and precise expression. But you must carry on the operation 
inside the mind, and not merely practice literary deportment on 
paper. So far as my observation has gone, men will do better if they 
seek precision by studying carefully and with an open mind and a 
vigilant eye the great models of writing, than by excessive practice 
of writing on their own account." 

Mr. Frederic Harrison says : " The bare art of writing readable 
paragraphs in passable English is easy enough to master. But it is 
a poor art which readily lends itself to harm. It leads the shallow 
ones to suppose themselves deep, the raw ones to fancy they are 
cultured, and it burdens the world with a deluge of facile common- 
place." 

Mr. Leslie Stephen says : " I have often heard remarks upon the 
modern diffusion of literary skill. Ten people, it is said, can write 
well now for one who could write well fifty years ago. No doubt the 
demand for facile writing has enormously increased the supply. But 



188 NOTES 

I do not think that first-rate writing — the writing which speaks of 
a full mind and strong convictions, which is clear because it is 
thorough not because it is shallow — has increased in the same 
proportion ; if, indeed, we can be sure that it has increased at all. 
Perhaps there are ten times as many people who can put other men's 
thoughts into fine phrases ; but are there ten times as many, are 
there even as many, who think for themselves and speak at first 
hand ? " 

50 10-12 Unquestionably the right way etc. : Mr. James Russell 
Lowell says : " One is sometimes asked by young people to recom- 
mend a course of ' reading.' My advice would be that they should 
confine themselves to the supreme books in whatever literature, or 
still better, to choose some one great author, and make themselves 
thoroughly familiar with him. . . . This method forces upon us the 
necessity of thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all 
education." 

50 26-28 It is indeed sometimes urged etc. : Mr. James Russell 
Lowell says : " We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of the men 
of three centuries ago, and at a certain dignity of phrase that charac- 
terizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many 
things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. 
Their speech was noble because they lunched with Plutarch and 
supped with Plato." 

52 15-18 So let our youth etc. : " Of all our study the last end and 
aim should be to ascertain how a great writer or artist has served 
the life of man ; to ascertain this, to bring home to ourselves as large 
a portion as may be of the gain wherewith he has enriched human 
life." — Edward Dowden. 

SHAKESPEARE AS A TEXT-BOOK 

54 18-20 The plays, in all cases etc. : The matter of expurgation 
is of the greatest importance where the plays are to be read aloud in 
the class room. Professor Hudson managed this with consummate 
skill and sound judgment. 

58 29-30 Especially I make much of reading etc. : Professor Hiram 
Corson says: "In literary examinations a sufficiently qualified 
teacher could arrive at a nicer and more certain estimate of what 



SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 1 89 

a student has appropriated, both intellectually and spiritually, of a 
literary product, by requiring him to read it, than he could arrive at 
by any amount of catechising." 

61 3-5 As to exercises in the Poet's versification etc. : Much insight 
into the poet's art of versification may be acquired by simple exer- 
cises in reading it aloud, by comparing his verse with that of other 
great poets, and by studying such a simple explanation of it as that 
given in Professor Dowden's Primer of Shakespeare. I believe that 
exercises in writing verse are of great value in teaching the tonic 
resources of language, its flexibility, its wealth, its suggestiveness, 
and its power of revealing feelings of joy and grief, pity and pathos, 
love and hate. By such exercises the student's vocabulary will 
become richer, his habits of expression more dignified, his taste 
more refined, and his imagination quickened. 

HOW TO USE SHAKESPEARE IN SCHOOL 

63 9-14 And in the first place etc.: " Method " has been the word 
of our teachers of pedagogy, and it has been insisted upon with such 
force that too often the young teacher is found imitating the method 
of a successful instructor at the expense of his own initiative. The 
personal element in the teacher, his interest, enthusiasm, and devo- 
tion, will seldom fail of good results. 

66 19-24 And both they and I know etc. : Dr. H. H. Furness wrote 
to Professor Hudson : M I work for my own satisfaction and the glory 
of Shakespeare, and if, as the outcome of all my labor, a new edition 
and a better emerges out of mine, wherein no reference to my toil is 
found, I should have no feeling but that of grateful delight." 

67 7-9 Now such a love etc. : Professor Edward Dowden says : 
"An intelligent examiner will give a preference to questions which 
do more than test the memory. There is a class of questions which 
serve as a test of close and intelligent reading, and also give the 
student an opportunity of showing whether he has exercised what 
I may call the faculty of imaginative realization." 

70 5-9 In the first place, I never have had etc. : Even- exercise in 
English literature ought to be made vital by bringing the pupils into 
touch with the personality which created the work in hand, by cor- 
relating the principles and ideals it contains with the life of the 



igo NOTES 

present, by revealing that literature is not a storehouse of facts, but 
a reservoir of truths, the appreciation of which constitutes our true 
being. Such exercises are not concerned with the intellectual 
activity called acquirement, but with the spiritual activity called cul- 
ture. Often the colleges do not know what kind of work in the 
study of literature the best schools are doing. Not long ago a club 
composed of masters of English in the secondary schools called the 
attention of the Harvard examiners to the technical character of the 
questions set for entrance in English, and asked that a fair propor- 
tion of the questions should test the student's ability to read with 
insight and appreciation, — a sense of literary values, — rather than 
his knowledge of details. If one compares the Harvard examina- 
tions in English in 1894 with those of 1 904-1 905, one will readily 
see the result of this conference. 

President Hadley has said that if the secondary schools con- 
tinued to send to Yale students with a confirmed dislike for English 
studies, he would withdraw the entrance requirements in English, 
as the instructors would rather deal with those students who had no 
special appreciation of literature than with those who had formed a 
dislike for it. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the 
leadership of President Pritchett, has come to recognize the impor- 
tance of academic studies in technical work, and now asks of a pupil 
who presents himself for admission in English, " Ability to express 
himself in writing at once clear and accurate, and power to distinguish 
in a broad sense literary values, — the qualities which mark a work 
as being Literature." 

These advances show clearly that the ideals which Professor 
Hudson held important have now an honorable recognition in the 
greatest colleges and universities. The establishment of the Honor 
School in Literature and History by Harvard University is one of 
the most significant movements in modern education in this country, 
and will take rank with that of the Preceptorial system at Princeton. 
Both of these have for their ideal not scientific research, but rather 
the cultivation of taste, delicacy, and insight by association with 
those who possessed them without ever being able to pass a credit- 
able examination on the question, " Where did you get them ? " 
The student is required to submit himself to a teacher, and to ask 
no question as to the secret of his influence. This method is a 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 191 

recognition of Mr. Leslie Stephen's teaching, that "all criticism 
not rooted in history is a nuisance and a parasitic growth upon 
literature." 

71 1-6 And I make a good deal of having the Poet's lines read properly 
etc.: Shakespeare's frequent allusions to those qualities of the human 
voice which give it pathos, charm, and power, reveal the fact that 
he was responsive to its attractions. 

Professor Hiram Corson says : " There is evidence in the Plays 
that, in composition, Shakespeare must either have heard imagi- 
natively what he was writing, or have actually voiced his language 
as he went along. He did not write for the eye, but for the ear." 

75 5-10 In fact, I cleave rather fondly etc. : I know of no teacher of 
English literature in this country of whom his pupils oftener think 
with pleasure and speak with delight than Dr. Hudson. 

83 17-18 And, if the thing etc. : To some this may seem like put- 
ting the case too emphatically, but those familiar with teaching 
will, I think, agree with Dr. Hudson. Fortunately we are now 
giving more attention to the physical training of girls ; we are 
making less of the examination — especially of that type which 
admits of cramming — and more of that training which develops 
power of thought and imagination. 

PREFACE TO THE HARVARD EDITION OF 
SHAKESPEARE 

87 1-5 The most obvious peculiarity etc. : Cf. note 3 15, page 177. 

87 21-22 It scarce need be said etc. : The Revised Hudson Shake- _ 
speare furnishes the special student with more critical and textual 
matter than the original, while it does not present so much as to 
discourage the general reader. Mr. P. A. Daniel, the author of A 
Tinie Analysis of the Plots of Shakespeare *s Plays, in the New 
Shakespeare Society Papers, Series I, and Xotes and Emendations^ 
wrote to Dr. Hudson as follows : " To my fancy the common reader 
wants no notes interspersed with the text : they but distract his 
attention from the subject which should exclusively engage it. . . . 
Your edition will probably lead many to the critical study of the 
text and will probably satisfy the popular demand." Mr. J. O. 
Halliwell-Phillipps, author of Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 



192 NOTES 

etc., wrote : " The division of the excellent notes into two sets is a 
splendid arrangement that alone would give character to the work." 

88 19-22 This edition etc. : Mr. P. A. Daniel wrote : " Of the im- 
mense labor, care, and knowledge of the subject you have displayed 
— or rather, I should say, concealed — in the preparation of the text, 
each page is witness, and all who know anything of the difficulties 
which beset the path of an editor of Shakespeare will, I am sure, 
appreciate the result." 

89 6-9 For it has long been a settled axiom etc. : Mr. Matthew 
Arnold says : " We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more 
highly than it has been the custom to conceive it. We should con- 
ceive of it as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies 
than those which in general men have assigned to it hitherto. More 
and more mankind will discover that we turn to poetry to interpret 
life for us, to console us, to sustain us." 

90 19-21 These remarks, I believe etc. : In ordering a set of this 
edition sent to the English Shakespeare Memorial Library, and the 
Library of the German Shakespeare Society, Dr. Horace Howard 
Furness wrote : " I scarcely know how I can better show my high 
appreciation of this noble edition than by placing it where English 
and German scholars can have free access to it and learn from it 
the wealth of love and learning which in this country is dedicated to 
Shakespeare." Professor Dowden wrote : " Hudson's edition takes 
its place beside the best work of English Shakespeare students." 
Mr. F. J. Furnivall, in his introduction to The Leopold Shakespeare, 
said : " In Shakesperean criticism, Gervinus of Heidelberg, Dowden 
of Dublin, and Hudson of Boston are the students' best guides that 
we have." Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote : " The Harvard edi- 
tion has given me the greatest treat that I have had for many a 
day, and I can hardly express how much pleasure it affords me to 
possess so admirable a work, edited as it is with such exceptional 
ability and knowledge." The above are but a few of the opinions 
of the eminent Shakespeareans who expressed to Dr. Hudson their 
appreciation of his great work. 

91 22-30 Therewithal, the Poet etc. : 

Others abide our question. Thou art free. 
We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, 
Out-topping knowledge. . . . 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 193 

All pains the immortal Spirit must endure, 

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow, 

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow. 

Matthew Arnold. 

92 19-24 And here it is of the first importance etc. : One who reads 
Dr. Hudson's Shakespeare's Life, Art, and Characters will be im- 
pressed with the directness, originality, and vigor of style, — the 
unique power of putting things clearly. 

94 11-16 It is the instinct etc.: Professor Dowden says: "Our 
prime object (in reading) should be to get into living relation with 
a man ; and by this means, with the good forces of nature and 
humanity which play in and through him. This aim condemns all 
reading for pride and vainglory as wholly astray, and all reading for 
scholarship and specialized knowledge as partial and insufficient. 
We must not read for these, but for life; we must read in order 
to live." 

95 9-15 Small points and issues etc. : Mr. J. Churton Collins says : 
" Literature has been regarded (in the schools) not as the expression 
of art and genius, but as mere material for the study of words, as 
mere pabulum for philology ; and the teaching of it has failed for 
the same reason that ' Classics ' have failed. It has failed not be- 
cause it affords no material profitable for teaching, but because we 
pervert it into material for unprofitable teaching." 

96 8-10 Thus Shakespeare etc. : Fortunately we are now returning 
to the old habit of reading the Bible as a revelation of a national 
literature, although such a reading of it is deemed heretical by the 
severely orthodox. Can the Bible become less influential by being 
read with interest and pleasure as literature ? After a somewhat 
extended experience with pupils in secondary schools and in college, 
I can testify that when thus read and correlated with other great 
literatures it becomes a source of unique educational power. 

97 21-24 It seems to be presumed etc. : In regard to this matter 
President Woodrow Wilson wrote me : "I heartily agree with all 
that you say about the teaching of English literature. No method 
1 made in Germany ' can ever get at the heart of our great litera- 
ture, and by using such methods we are cheating ourselves out of a 
great heritage, stupidly if not deliberately." Mr. J. Churton Collins 
says : " The instincts and faculties which separate the temperament 



194 NOTES 

of the mathematician from the temperament of the poet are not 
more radical and essential than the instincts and faculties which 
separate the sympathetic student of Philology from the sympathetic 
student of Polite Literature. And of all the sciences Philology is 
the most repugnant to men of artistic and literary taste." 

98 27-30 such, for instance etc. : Every student of Shakespeare 
feels the truth of Dr. Hudson's praise of these noble monuments to 
American scholarship. 

The other famous Variorum editions are : Isaac Reed's, based on 
Steevens's work of 1773, ano ^ published in twenty-one volumes in 
1803; that of James Boswell, the son of Johnson's biographer, based 
on Malone's edition of 1790, and published in twenty-one volumes 
in 1821. 

100 6-8 Copies of these editions etc. : " The largest collections of 
the original Quartos — each of which only survives in four, five, or 
six copies — are in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the 
British Museum, in Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the Bodleian 
Library. Perfect copies range in price, according to their rarity, from 
^200 to ^300." — Sidney Lee. Inexpensive facsimiles of these 
Quartos are now accessible. 

100 25 folio of 1623. Cf. A Primer of Shakespeare, Edward Dow- 
den ; A Life of William Shakespeare, Sidney Lee, page 303. 

101 23-24 In their "Address to the Readers" etc. : Cf. Famous In- 
troductions to Shakespeare *s Plays by B. Warner. 

102 9-10 The folio was reprinted etc. : These are known as the 
Second, Third, and Fourth Folios respectively, and designated as F 2 , 
F 8 , F 4 . 

102 24 "Collier's second folio" : Cf. Sidney Lee's various allusions 
to Collier's work in A Life of William Shakespeare. 

104 4-7 The labors etc. : Mr. A. C. Swinburne says : " The great- 
est poet of our age has drawn a parallel of elaborate eloquence 
between Shakespeare and the sea; and the likeness holds good in 
many points of less significance than those which have been set 
down by a master hand. For two hundred years at least have 
students of every kind put forth in every sort of boats on a longer 
or shorter voyage of research across the waters of that unsounded 
sea. . . . There are shoals and quicksands on which many a sea- 
farer has run his craft aground in times past, and others of more 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 195 

special peril to adventurers of the present day. At one time a main 
rock of offense on which the stoutest ships of discovery were wont 
to split was the narrow and slippery reef of verbal emendation : 
and upon this our native pilots were too many of them prone to 
steer. Others fell becalmed offshore in a German fog of philosophic 
theories." 

104 21-24 His text etc. : This sentiment is even more common now 
than in Dr. Hudson's time, and the tendency of modern editors is 
to return to the text of the Folios and Quartos. In revising the text 
of Hudson's Shakespeare changes have been made mainly in favor 
of the early editions. 

105 15-16 The work of ascertaining etc. : Rowe has the distinction 
of being the first biographer of Shakespeare, and what he included 
in his sketch still remains as essentially all that we know in regard 
to the poet's life. His text was based upon that of the Fourth 
Folio and has no special value. His greatest service was in prepar- 
ing a list of Dramatis Personae and dividing the plays into acts and 
scenes. 

105 17-19 The work was continued by Pope : Pope was Shake- 
speare's second editor (1725). He made many textual changes in 
the edition of Rowe, and also improved on Rowe's arrangement of 
scenes. 

105 19 Pope was followed by Theobald : The war of the critics 
began with Theobald's vigorous attack upon Pope in 1726 for his 
freedom with the text. Mr. Sidney Lee calls Theobald " the most 
inspired of all the textual critics of Shakespeare." He based his 
text on the First Folio, and by far the larger part of his emenda- 
tions have become generally adopted. Professor Hudson had the 
greatest respect for him, and the principles he lays down as to the 
handling of Shakespeare's text are in the vein of this great editor. 

105 21 Hanmer's edition : This edition was published in 1744 at 
the Oxford University Press. Hanmer did not indulge in abuse of 
previous editors, but arranged the text to suit himself, quite disre- 
garding the old copies. 

105 21 Warburton's : Bishop Warburton published a revised ver- 
sion of Pope's edition in 1747. The Bishop espoused the cause of 
Pope and attacked Rowe, Theobald, and Hanmer. His canons of 
criticism have been recognized as eminently sound and sagacious. 



196 NOTES 

In 1 88 1 Mr. C. M. Ingleby wrote to Professor Hudson : " Karl Elze 
and I differ in toto about Bishop Warburton. I am pleased to 
see that you do honor to the great critic, second only, I think, 
to Theobald." 

105 23 Johnson: In 1765 Dr. Johnson published his edition, in 
which he reviewed the work of previous editors with a somewhat 
arrogant criticism. The preface contains some of the most valuable 
suggestions as to notes to works of literary art and the value of 
first-hand acquaintance with authors. 

105 23 Capell: Edward Capell, in his edition of 1768, made 
careful collation of the Quartos and First and Second Folios. In 
scholarly and painstaking work he resembled Theobald. 

105 23 Steevens : In 1766 Steevens printed twenty plays from the 
Quartos and correlated contemporary literature with that of Shake- 
speare ; and in 1773 ne revised Johnson's edition. He played so 
many pranks with the text that he was called the " Puck of 
Commentators." 

105 24 Malone : Edmund Malone was the last of the great editors 
of the eighteenth century. He stoutly maintained that the First 
Folio had a far greater value as authority on text than any other. 
He was the first of the critics to attempt a proper chronological 
order of the plays. 

The prefaces to these editions, from the Folio of 1623 to that of 
Malone, have been recently published in a single volume, with an 
introduction by Mr. Beverly Warner. It is a book of great value to 
students of literary history. 

108 21-24 Certainly changes in the old text etc. : In his earliest 
edition Professor Hudson took some liberties in this matter of text 
which caused him to be looked upon as extremely radical, but in 
his later work he was more conservative. 

The following extracts from letters from his coworkers in Eng- 
land reveal in what esteem he was held as a textual critic. Mr. P. A. 
Daniel wrote : "Although on some matters of detail I might differ 
from you, yet on the whole I offer you my hearty congratulations." 
Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps wrote : " There are some points upon 
which I don't agree with you, but that, of course, you will expect. 
Different minds can never quite agree on many points, especially of 



THE HARVARD SHAKESPEARE 197 

authorship." Mr. C. M. Ingleby wrote : " We. should have to cross 
swords, in honor not in hate, many times in the course of a play. 
The spirit of the whole is good and right ; and you sway your scepter 
with a dignified fairness which is delightful." 

The distinguished English Shakespearean, Professor Edward 
Dowden of Dublin, sends me an interesting and suggestive estimate 
of Dr. Hudson's work. He says : " Hudson seems to me to take a 
very high place among critics who have interpreted the genius and 
the art of Shakespeare. He is both comprehensive and penetrating, 
is alive both to the ethical and the aesthetic aspects of Shake- 
speare's work; and he enters in a genial way into the study of 
character in the tragedies, historical plays, and comedies. He has 
excellent discretion and good sense. Few persons have done so 
much as Hudson to make the study of Shakespeare a part of edu- 
cation. As a textual critic he is often ingenious and acute, but he 
was perhaps less widely read in Elizabethan literature than is 
required for sure textual criticism, and I think he was somewhat 
too ready to displace the old text by clear, but not always needful, 
emendation." 

114 31-115 2 Yet the whole thing is totally ignored etc. : Mr. Hor- 
ace Howard Furness, on receiving the Harvard Shakespeare, wrote : 
" I broke away from Christmas festivity and sat down to your 
Preface, and I need not say I thoroughly admire it. In one or two 
places where I do not now agree with you I am ready to wait until 
better wisdom comes to me. I ca?inot disagree with you and feel 
easy in my conscience." 

116 9-10 And now a word as to the ordering of the plays etc. : In 
this matter Professor Dowden's Primer and Mr. Sidney Lee's A Life 
of William Shakespeare are excellent guides for the student. 

116 22-27 This is done merely etc.: I think Professor Hudson 
underestimated the value of reading the plays in the order of their 
creation. If they are, like the works of all great poets, M part of a 
great confession," then it is of the utmost importance that they be 
read historically. Professor Dowden has treated this subject with 
clearness and wisdom in his chapter, " The Teaching of English 
Literature," New Studies in Literature. 



198 NOTES 

DANIEL WEBSTER 

119 13-16 She has not seen fit etc. : For an interesting review of 
Webster's life and his various activities, the student should read 
The Proceedings of the Webster Centennial of Dartmouth College, 
1901. 

121 16-23 But what, in this regard etc.: Honorable George F. 
Hoar, in his speech at the Webster Centennial at Dartmouth College, 
said : " How many men have there been in this country whose col- 
lege would celebrate their taking their degree one hundred years 
afterward ? It might have been done for Washington and Lincoln. 
But they were not college men. It might have been done for Ham- 
ilton or Jefferson. But neither Hamilton nor Jefferson got through 
college, and Jefferson was not in general a favorite with college 
men. I believe Bowdoin will do it for Longfellow, and I believe 
Harvard will do it for Emerson. I cannot think of any other. Yet 
no man will doubt the absolute fitness of the ceremonial to-day." 

122 13-16 I had not then learned etc. : Cf. Mr. E. P. Whipple's 
admirable essay on Webster as a Master of English Style. 

In July, 1 891, Senator George F. Hoar wrote to me the following 
in regard to Webster's style : " It is very common, even with accom-^ 
plished and able critics, to speak of Mr. Webster's style as an exam- 
ple of pure Saxon. This is a great mistake. In a few passages 
where his mind seems to have been at a white heat his sentences 
have a rugged Saxon character. But if you open any volume of 
Mr. Webster's speeches at random and read the first sentences that 
strike the eye, you will see that his ordinary style is a highly Latin- 
ized one. He uses long sentences with dependent clauses, and long 
words of Latin derivation. Indeed, I think some of our teachers 
of composition carry their dislike of the use of Latin idioms alto- 
gether too far, and that, if their advice were taken, our language 
would lose a good deal of its variety, its capacity for expression, nice 
shades of meaning, and its dignity. Persons who wish to cover up 
the absence of thought by a pompous and inflated style naturally 
resort to words which come from the Latin, and against them this 
condemnation is well directed. But the profound thoughts of 
Daniel Webster, the great and clear distinctions which the course 
of his arguments required him to draw and to make plain to the 



DANIEL WEBSTER 199 

apprehension of his hearers found suitable expression only by using 
the great resources of the Latin speech." 

124 2-4 while Burke's etc.: President Woodrow Wilson, in his 
interesting study of Burke, the Interpreter of English Liberty, says : 
" Burke is not literary because he takes from books, but because 
he makes books, transmuting what he writes upon into literature. 
It is this inevitable literary quality, this sure mastery of style, that 
mark the man, as much as the thought itself." 

124 26-28 I am not unmindful etc. : In regard to this address Hon- 
orable E. J. Phelps wrote Dr. Hudson in 1882 : " I like your address 
extremely. It is ' tender and true,' clearly and eloquently put. You 
are right, in my small estimation, in all you say except your com- 
parison of Webster and Burke, in the matter of oratory. Consider- 
ing the speeches of both as written essays, I do not pretend to treat 
them critically. Very likely you may be correct. But first and last 
in public speeches, it seems to me, regard is to be had to their imme- 
diate effectiveness as such — that union of matter, language, man- 
ner, delivery, and timeliness — that makes up oratory. Viewed thus, 
can there be a comparison between Webster, who chose universal 
audience, moved and melted all men, and left on their minds and 
hearts an enduring as well as an immediate result, and Burke, 
whose speeches, splendidly as they read, always emptied the House ? 
Webster's sounded better than anything ever read, Burke's read 
better than anything ever sounded. But on the score of oratory, 
the immediate audience must determine, — not posterity; because 
it is to them alone it is addressed, however the echo of it may 
1 thunder down the corridors of time.' And therefore, with due 
respect and regard for all the mighty dead, I place Webster first 
and foremost as an orator, over all men we have any account of. 
He alone could put a volume into a sentence, and another into the 
pause that followed it. He alone could blend consummate logic with 
the most touching eloquence, in such wise that neither weakened, 
but each strengthened the other." Honorable S. W. McCall says : 
"Burke is, I' think, superior to Webster as a political philosopher, 
and also in breadth of information and imaginative power, but in 
excellence of the great mass of oratorical work which he left behind 
him he does not much surpass Webster, if at all. . . . The glowing 
oratory of Edmund Burke will live until sensibility to beauty and 



200 NOTES 

the generous love of liberty shall die. And I believe the words of 
Webster, nobly voicing the possibilities of a mighty nation, as yet 
only dimly conscious of its destiny, will continue to roll upon the 
ears of men while the nation he helped to fashion shall endure, 
or indeed while government founded upon popular freedom shall 
remain an instrument of civilization. ,, 

125 18-19 And the two men etc.: On the occasion of Senator George 
F. Hoar's visit to Charleston, South Carolina, as the guest of the New 
England Society in December, 1891, he said: "I have sometimes 
fancied South Carolina and Massachusetts, these two illustrious and 
heroic sisters, instead of sitting apart, one under her palm trees 
and the other under her pines, one with the hot gales from the tropics 
fanning her brow and the other on the granite rocks of her ice- 
bound shores, meeting together and comparing notes and stories as 
sisters born of the same mother compare notes and stories after a 
long separation. How the old estrangements, born of ignorance of 
each other, would have melted away ! 

" Does it ever occur to you that the greatest single tribute ever 
paid to Daniel Webster was paid by Mr. Calhoun ? and the greatest 
single tribute ever paid to Mr. Calhoun was paid by Mr. Webster? 

" I do not believe that among the compliments or marks of honor 
which attended the illustrious career of Daniel Webster there is 
one that he would have valued so much as that which his great 
friend, his great rival and antagonist, paid him from his dying bed. 

" ' Mr. Webster,' said Mr. Calhoun, ' has as high a standard of 
truth as any statesman whom I have met in debate. Convince him, 
and he cannot reply ; he is silent ; he cannot look truth in the face 
and oppose it by argument.' 

" There was never, I suppose, paid to John C. Calhoun, during 
his illustrious life, any other tribute of honor he would have valued 
so highly as that which was paid him after his death by his friend, 
his rival and antagonist, Daniel Webster. 

" < Mr. Calhoun,' said Mr. Webster, ' had the basis, the indispen- 
sable basis, of all high character; and that was, unspotted integrity, 
— unimpeached honor and character. If he had aspirations, they 
were high and honorable and noble. There was nothing groveling, 
or low, or meanly selfish that came near the head or the heart of 
Mr. Calhoun. Firm in his purpose, perfectly patriotic and honest, 



DANIEL WEBSTER 201 

as I was sure he was, in the principles he espoused, and in the 
measures he defended, aside from that large regard for that species 
of distinction that conducted him to eminent stations for the benefit 
of the republic, I do not believe he had a selfish motive or a selfish 
feeling.' 

" Just think for a moment what this means. If any man ever lived 
who was not merely the representative, but the embodiment of the 
thought, opinion, principles, character, quality, intellectual and moral, 
of the people of South Carolina for the forty years from 1810 until 
his death, it was John C. Calhoun. 

" If any man ever lived who not merely was the representative, but 
the embodiment of the thought, opinion, principles, character, qual- 
ity, intellectual and moral, of the people of Massachusetts, it was 
Daniel Webster. 

" Now, if after forty years of rivalry, of conflict, of antagonism, 
these two statesmen of ours most widely differing in opinions on 
public questions, who never met but to exchange a blow, the sparks 
from the encounter of whose mighty swords kindled the fires which 
spread over the continent, thought thus of one another, is it not 
likely that if the States they represented could have met with the 
same intimacy, with the same knowledge and companionship during 
all these years, they, too, would have understood, and understand- 
ing, would have loved each other?" 

127 20-27 Surely the people etc. : On the publication of my edition 
of Webster } s Select Speeches in 1893, Senator George F. Hoar wrote 
me : " I wish that every boy and girl in the land would get these 
speeches by heart." 

128 3-5 He was indeed etc. : Honorable S. W. McCall says : " There 
can be no doubt as to the majesty of his personal presence. Business 
would be temporarily suspended when he walked down State Street, 
while people rushed to doors and windows to see him pass." 

On receiving this address on Webster, February 24, 1882, Dr. 
Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to Dr. Hudson : " Many thanks for 
your fervid, potent, and eloquent discourse. Mr. Webster's colossal 
figure is gradually coming out of the mist which gathered around it 
in the evil days. If he could only have lived through the struggle he 
could not avert ! He was the most impressive human being I ever 
looked upon. I could not help being pleased when he quoted a 



202 NOTES 

passage from one of my poems in one of his speeches. That is the 
way we are made." 

130 14-17 In the summer of 1839 etc. : " Mr. Webster approaches as 
nearly to the beau ideal of a republican Senator as any man that I 
have ever seen in the course of my life ; worthy of Rome or Venice 
rather than of our noisy and wrangling generation." — Hallam. 

" Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of 
any great man who had not much of the woman in him. Even so 
the large intellect of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with 
all softer feelings ; and his countenance and bearing, at the very 
first, impressed me with this. A commanding brow, thoughtful 
eyes, and a mouth that. seemed to respond to all humanities. He 
deserves his fame, I am sure." — John Kenyon. 

" He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, 
' This is our Yankee Englishman ; such limbs we make in Yankee- 
land ! ' As a parliamentary Hercules one would incline to back 
him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned com- 
plexion ; the amorphous craglike face ; the dull black eyes under 
the precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces needing only 
to be blown ; the mastiff mouth, accurately closed ; I have not 
traced so much of silent Berserkir rage that I remember of in any 
other man." — Thomas Carlyle. 

148 13-17 The truth of the matter etc. : Honorable S. W. McCall 
says : " In the speeches of some of the leaders of the antislavery 
movement, denunciation of slavery had the second place and 
denunciation of Webster the first ; and when the time of consum- 
mation came, even Lincoln did not escape their acrimony." 

149 17-23 As for the speech of the 7th of March etc. : In a review 
of that speech as given in Honorable S. W. McCall's Daniel Webster, 
Mr. McCall says : "And had that great statesman on the 7th of 
March shown any less anxiety for the Union, had that great cen- 
tripetal force become centrifugal or weakened in the attraction 
which it exerted to hold the States in their orbits, who shall say 
that our magnificent and now united domain might not be cursed 
by two hostile flags, one of which would float over a republic 
founded upon slavery ! " 

153 6-7 It was written in 1850 etc. : This poem has something of 
the spirit of Browning's Lost Leader, which has been considered as 



DANIEL WEBSTER 203 

a miid thrust at Wordsworth for the conservatism of his later life, 
although Browning confessed that he " used the great and vener- 
ated personality of Wordsworth only as a sort of painter's model, 
and not as portraying the entire man." Of Webster's treatment as 
a result of the 7th of March speech, Honorable S. W. McCall says : 
"And then there is that ill-omened thing which, wherever else it 
may be found, is sure to attend greatness. The baleful goddess 
of Detraction sits ever at the elbow of Fame, unsweetening what 
is written upon the record. . . . This proof of greatness, such as 
it is, exists in ample measure in the history of Webster. No man 
since Washington has had more of it. The pity of it all is, that 
when an unsupported charge is disproved, some people will shake 
their heads and say it is very unfortunate that it should have been 
necessary to establish innocence ; as if reproof belonged rather to 
the innocent victim than to the author of the calumny." 

153 23-28 It is but fair to add etc. : Honorable George F. Hoar 
says : " Whittier, who had written Ichabod, brought his imperishable 
tribute of affection and honor, which, alas ! was never placed on the 
brow of Webster, but only laid on his grave." 

156 22-26 Yes, the great soul of Daniel Webster etc.: Honorable 
S. W. McCall says of the Reply to Hay?ie : " It was this speech more 
than any other single event, from the adoption of the Constitution 
to the Civil War, which compacted the States into a nation. There 
were comparatively few people in the country able to read and to 
follow public affairs who did not read the more important portions 
of it. The leading newspapers published it in full. Vast numbers 
of copies were sent out in the form of pamphlets. It was declaimed 
by schoolboys in every schoolhouse. It gave the nation a definite 
impulse towards nationality, and it laid down the battle line for 
those splendid armies which fought and triumphed in the cause of 
the Union." 

162 2-7 His memory will out-tongue etc. : At the opening exer- 
cises of the Webster Centennial of Dartmouth College, on Septem- 
ber 25, 1901, President Tucker said: "Webster's influence is vital 
to-day in the thought and feelings of men in respect to the country. 
We have learned, we have begun to learn, to think about the coun- 
try in his terms, and to feel about it as he felt. His conceptions 
were so great that they could find room only in his own mind. 



204 NOTES 

They belong to the United States of to-day, not to the nation of 
his time. Thus far Webster is the only man who has comprehended 
the American people. Until a greater American than he shall arise, 
he will live in the still unfulfilled destiny of the Republic. " 

Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller, at the Webster Centennial of 
Dartmouth College, said : " Nearly forty-nine years ago, an under- 
graduate on leave of absence for the purpose, I attended the funeral 
of Mr. Webster at Marshfield. The beauty of that October day ; 
the majestic aspect of the great lawyer and advocate, statesman 
and orator, as he lay in his accustomed habiliments under the 
spreading branches of a beautiful tree in front of the mansion ; and 
the walk of neighbors and friends, distinguished personages and 
others, over the fields to the grave, are still vivid in my memory. 
As a youth I paid that tribute to Daniel Webster, an incident quite 
unimportant save to the boy himself, and I repeat it now after a 
lapse of nearly fifty years, with the added significance involved in 
the office I hold, whose incumbent, if another than myself, would 
have been fully justified, as I am, in bearing witness as such to the 
immortality of a fame so connected with the administration of jus- 
tice, and with the vindication of liberty as the creation of law, that, 
to use his own language, it ' is and must be as durable as the frame 
of human society.' " 

It is interesting to note that when the poll was taken for the one 
hundred greatest names in American history, to be placed in the 
Hall of Fame, Washington stood first in the list, while Lincoln and 
Webster tied for the second place. 



BOOKS QUOTED IN NOTES 

Ainger, A., " Teaching of English Literature," Lectures and Essays, 

Vol. II. 
Arnold, M., " Milton," " The Study of Poetry," Essays in Criticism 

(Second Series). 
Barrie, J. M., Margaret Ogilvy. 

Benson, A. C, "Education," From a College Window. 
Birrell, A., " How to Tell a Good Book from a Bad One," Essays 

and Addresses. 
Brooks, P., " The Beautiful Gate of the Temple," Twenty Sermons. 

" Literature and Life," Essays. 

Corson, H., Aims of Literary Study. 

The Voice and Spiritual Education. 

Collins, J. C, The Study of English Literature, Chapters II and 

IV. 
Dowden, E., " The Interpretation of Literature," Transcripts and 

Studies. 

"The Teaching of Literature," New Studies in Literature. 

Fuller, M. W., Address at Webster Centennial, Dartmouth 

College. 
Harrison, F., The Choice of Books. 

"English Prose," Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill. 

Hutton, R. H., " The Storing of Literary Power," Brief Literary 

Criticism. 
Hoar, G. F., Address at the Inauguration of President Carroll D. 

Wright, Clark College. 

Address at W T ebster Centennial, Dartmouth College. 

Hunt, T. W., "The Place of Literature in Liberal Studies," Litera- 
ture : Its Principles and Problems. 
James, W., "The Gospel of Relaxation," Talks on Psychology and 

Life's Ideals. 
Lee, Sidney, Life of William Shakespeare. 



206 BOOKS QUOTED IN NOTES 

Lowell, J. R., " Books and Libraries," Democracy and Other 

Essays. 
Martineau, J., Faith and Self Surrender. 

" The Child's Thought," Endeavors after a Christian Life. 

McCall, S. W., Daniel Webster. 

Morley, John, " On the Study of Literature," Studies in Literature. 

Paul, H., " Matthew Arnold's Letters," Men and Letters. 

Ruskin, J., Sesame and Lilies. 

Stephen, L., " The Duties of Authors," Social Rights and Duties, 

Vol. II. 

English Literature in the Eighteenth Century. 

Swinburne, A. C, A Study of Shakespeare, Chapter I. 
Warner, B., Famous Introductions to Shakespeare's Plays. 
Wilson, W., " Mere Literature," " The Author's Company," " Burke, 

the Interpreter of English Liberty," Mere Literature. 



NOV 26 1906 



